Cwm Caseg

Crag: Cwm Ffynnon Caseg
Routes: Col Route (wI:sol), Elen Gully (wI/II:sol)
Peaks: Yr Elen
Area: Carneddau
I've been looking for an excuse to visit Ffynnon Caseg for many years - arguably the remotest lake in north Wales, and one of the most isolated cwms. Exploring the gentle snow gullies is really the only thing you can do up here, so the prevailing conditions of perfect neve above 700m made it the obvious choice, particularly as this was a solo day. Prospects were very bleak as I walked through Ciltwllan above Bethesda in the murky pre-dawn drizzle. A sharp snow shower, the clag right down, made for a dark, dank start up the boggy lower cwm (last visited as I struggled through the brutal final leg of the Carneddau fell race over Gyrn Wigau a few years ago). The walk-in is about as long as it gets in Wales, but genuinely atmospheric, particularly alone. The valley twists to the south, then climbs to a hidden valley below Cwm Bychan before a final rise to the fabulous Cwm Ffynnon Caseg. After a snow-free valley, the cwm was (as I'd hoped/predicted) a bowl of iron-hard neve, the lake frozen solid. An obvious snow-holding area, 750m up and north-facing. The clag was right down, making it hard to identify potential routes upwards, so I took a bearing from lake to bwlch and went for the conservative option of Col Route. Just a gentle snow slope, which felt quite Alpine in the conditions (partly because I couldn't see the top) and curves to the right above a small buttress. I moved into a shallow gully next to the steeper buttresses and emerged on the nice ridge path to the top of Yr Elen. An enjoyable mountaineering-style ascent, so I continued in the same vein, navigating down to the NE ridge in thick mist. This ridge is Alpine in tone for about 50m(!) before almost immediately petering out into scree slopes. At the bottom, I traversed left into another gully line which I took to be Elen Gully (but which could have been anything: descriptions are fairly meaningless and redundant here, it's just a place to enjoy the scenery and atmosphere). This gave an enjoyable sprint upwards on perfect neve, through a narrowing before emerging near the summit. Back down to some flat boulders above the lake for a wonderful scenic solo breakfast - unsurprisingly, saw nobody all morning. Long walk out, but back in Bethesda before 11.30.