Wild Camp: Tryfan Snowdonia

Location: Wales
Distance: 19.3km
Date: July 2014

Kit: Tarp (MLD Trailstar)
Seventh Wild Camp.

This was a very nice two day walk starting from the North face of the mighty Tryfan. The route started with a scramble up to the summit of Tryfan to the famous Adam and Eve stones. The route descends Tryfan on the South and dog legs up to Lyn Caseg-Fraith to top up water supplies. Time to properly test the new Sawyer water filter, a recent addition to my kit. In principle an amazing bit of kit but I’m reserving judgement for now.

The first night was spent under my MLD Trailstar above Devils Kitchen. This was a great spot with amazing views of Tryfan. This is the image I use for the backdrop of this website. The following day started with the usual Wayfarer breakfast cooked on my MSR Whisperlite, a couple of warm brews before dropping the TrailStar and making my way down Devils Kitchen. The route followed the eastern edge of the Lyn Idwal lake down to the visitors centre, crossing the A5 before starting the mega climb up Penny Ole Wen. Extremely underestimated!! On planning the route from this point onwards looked to be a nice steady climb, we couldn’t have been more wrong!  This was much more strenuous then expected!!! The climb was hard with many tricky scrambles, not for the faint hearted! In many ways more difficult than Tryfan, Penny Ole Wen has much more loose scree that gives way underneath you. Large boulders that should be heavey enough to take your weight slide down as you pull yourself up on them. It’s no exaggeration to say there were a couple of dicey moments but that’s what makes it worth doing. The summit was buried in low cloud and weather started to change from a nice warm summers day into a stormy thunderous attack. So a hastened retreat to lower ground dictated the route down to the small Tarn Ffynnon Lloer. This formed the second nights wild camp. The night was a wet and windy one, but the TrailStar shook it off without any dramas. The route concluded with a short walk back down to the A5 where the car was parked. All in all a brilliant wild camping adventure with some spectacular views and a complete mix of weather conditions thrown in. See the Wild Camp Map page for more route info.