Snowdon Ranger Path
Distance:
8 miles (13Km)
Ascent:
3071ft (936m)
Time:
6-7 hours
Grade:
Hard Mountain Walk
This path up Snowdon is thought to be the earliest of the six main routes to the summit. Before the road through Llanberis Pass was built, men lugged copper ore from the Britannia Copper Mine on Snowdon up the eastern side of the mountain to Bwlch Glas. Horses would then draw the ore down on a sledge along this path to the shores of Llyn Cwellyn to be transported by horse and cart to Caernarfon.
The path was named in English after a mountain guide called John Morton who called himself the ‘Snowdon Ranger’. At the beginning of the nineteenth century he built an inn on the site where the Youth Hostel stands today, opposite the car park. The inn was known as the ‘Snowdon Ranger’, ‘Snowdon Inn’ or ‘Glanllyn’ (meaning ‘lakeside’), from where he would guide visitors to the summit of Snowdon along this path.
The path climbs gradually up to and around the slopes of Moel Cynghorion to Bwlch Cwm Brwynog. It then climbs steeply over the shoulder above Clogwyn Du’r Arddu before merging with the Llanberis path, then the PyG and Miners’ tracks at Bwlch Glas and then on to the summit.
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