Are you tired of the crowds in Snowdonia, and looking for a new area to discover? Then come to the 'Elenydd', the Cambrian Mountains, described by many as an area of astounding natural beauty. It is a relatively unexplored, wild and wonderful mountain area within easy reach of southern Britain.
Do you love open country ‘off the beaten track’, but with the reassurance of detailed guidance? Then this website is for you!
We explore the Aberystwyth hinterland, within a short distance of the excellent camping, accommodation, and eating places of the town and villages, like Devil’s Bridge, Ponterwyd, and Pontrhydygroes.
You will find detailed guidance, with pictures and maps, suitable for home computer or mobile phone. The number of routes available here will be added to gradually, as the site evolves.
This is a nice easy walk on clearly-defined tracks and paths. It takes in the less-visited but enjoyable subsidiary peak of Y Garn, includes Pumlumon Fawr summit, and in the later stages gives quite a ‘wild’ feel with minimum effort. It is also easy to find the starting point on the main road, and so might be regarded as a convenient introduction to the area.
This is a favourite of ours, containing a great contrast of features, including a slightly vertiginous path overlooking the ‘pistyll’ (sliding waterfall) and two beautiful lakes in the later stages. There is an easy to follow path throughout.
This walk is one of superb contrasts and variety. You start in the craggy splendour of the cwm, and emerge suddenly onto a wide open plateau of rough grassland. A lakeside path gives way to a slightly vertiginous scramble to the top of Esgair Goch, finishing with an easy, downhill track.
This is a short, easy introduction to the range of shapely hills seen from the A44 near Ponterwyd. They're accessible and interesting, peaking at 573m/1,880ft (Draws Drum). You get a satisfying 'wild' feel, and need to do a bit of route-finding, though you're never too far from identifiable tracks and roads.
Moel y Llyn is a characterful hill…in the graceful-looking range that overlooks the Dyfi estuary on its southern side. This is a short but interesting round with gorgeous views, making up for scratchy gorse and some confusing route-finding early on. At the summit, there is a small and intriguing lake!
The scenery is wonderful on this walk, the views superb all round from the top of Drosgol, at 550m (1,787ft). This is definitely a walk to do after dry weather, unless you are fine with wading knee-deep across several small rivers! Having said that, much of the route is on good dry tracks.
This walk is a bit of a hidden gem, but best to do in clear weather, because of the excellent views all round from the summits.
This is an easy and short round of Pumlumon and, unusually for Pumlumon, is for the most part fairly dry underfoot, but for some of the way only faint footpaths are available to follow.