Dinas Mawddwy

A hiking guide to Dinas Mawddwy - Mid Snowdonia



The Walks
This place is somewhere that we have only just discovered recently and it is difficult to understand why it has been overlooked in the past. The highest summit outside the main Snowdon range - Aran Fawddwy - can be climbed from here as well as other medium height summits providing some pleasant surprises of one sort or another to most hikers.



The highest summit, Aran Fawddwy, lies at 905m and is part of a very long ridge that stretches north to south from Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid) to the Dovey Valley. Like all the best mountains, this one hides its 300m high cliff face away from road-side views which faces the east.



This cliff face is 4km long and only has one obvious breach in its defences - a wide grassy ramp. In fact the top can also be attained from a ridge leading from Drysgol.



The lochan of Craiglyn Dyfi is probably another place to try and visit.



The mountain can be traversed fully from north to south in a day or equally easily as a circuit of Cwm Cywarch from the south where the lower 400m high vegetated cliffs provide even more photo opportunities.

Until recently there were serious access problems on the Arrans, but the whole area now has extensive areas of access land.



Out to the west of Dinas Mawddwy lie some medium-height grassy plateaux with steep drops down to the main valley in the form of grass slopes and a few cliffs yielding some waterfalls. Behind these defences lie the grassy tops which fall gently down to vast forestry plantations. This area is also well worth visiting.

Eating and Drinking
Two pubs are known to exist in Dinas Mawddwy. The pub in the village itself was visited last time and provides some very affordable food and drink. Unfortunately chocolate fudge cake and ice cream was not available at the time. This pub was well decorated inside and had a reasonable amount of space for us as it was hardly crowded anyway. The other pub hasn't been visited yet.

Travel
transport is very poor to Dinas Mawddwy but does exist! You'll find transport between Dolgellau and Bala to be more frequent.