Cracking Recce

Cracking day. The sun shon like it had a point to prove. Dare I say it, it was almost too much for me but I'd applied factor 50 and had a tank full of water - not to mention some cheese sarnies for lunch. It was very nearly perfect.

The early morning drive up here went without issue other than the odd slow moving lorry or two. And as I'd made such good progress I decided to call into a cafe for breaky. A massive scone with oodles of jam and even more clotted cream -oh the waist line. Washed down with a decent cup of strong black coffee.

Anyway, I finally arrived at Llyn Ogwen and after about half an hour of kit selection I was off...

I followed the way marked path just north of the lake at the eastern end that follows Afon Lloer before reaching Ffynnon Lloer I turned west for a spot of scrambling before it becomes more of a path to Pen yr Ole Wen. I made surprisingly good time considering I really wasn't pushing. Sure I was out pacing the walkers but there wasn't any hands on legs hill climbing going on.

From there it got runnable. The uppy downy ridge run past Carnedd Fach and Dafydd was fantastic. Again I didn't flog myself. The drop from Dafydd was rough in places but runnable.

Two thirds of the way to Carnedd Llwelyn I turned west off the ridge to contour at about 950m towards Yr Elen and my cheese sarnie. Yes Yr Elen was the chosen one. I managed to pick a little extra height but overall I had a pretty good nav.

After consuming lunch and having had a little dabble on Facebook it was time to get going again. I returned back down from YE the same way I'd gone up but eventually took the path to Llwelyn.

From there I had a simple out and back section to Carnedd Gwellian and with it views of the start of the 1000s race to the northwest and northeast the end of the 3000s. Nothing of any major worry there.

Then it was back to Llwelyn and the eastern descent down past Ffynnon Llugwy and a couple miles of road running. All in a flipping successful recce. I don't feel that tired and I was much quicker than I expected considering how easy I took things. In all I took just over four hours for the 23km with 1300m of ascent. Happy with that.

It's the Glyders and Tryfan tomorrow...