Carnedd Llewelyn

30 July 2025 - Eryri National Park, United Kingdom

Today we submitted Carnedd Llewelyn, the second-highest mountain in Wales. As we hiked up, we took detours to vist Ffynnon Llugwy lake and a plane crash. Unfortunately, my GPS ran out of battery on the decent but this was around a 14.9km (9.2 miles) walk with 1258m (4127 feet) of ascent. We did this walk later in the day with the hope of watching sunset from the top however this didn't really happen in the end.

We started off by walking along a road, before heading up a farmers track to Ffynnon Llugwy lake for lunch.

3 men poinging up a mountain — Standing next to Ffynnon Llugwy lake pointing at where we are going to go - up!

Photo of a ridgline going up a mountain — Looking along the ridgline up do Pen yr Heigi Du. We walked in the other direction along the ridge up towards Carnedd Llewelyn.

Photo of a lake in a vally — Looking down on top of Ffynnon Llugwy lake into the vally

A panorama photo containing a lake in a vally and a ridgline going up a mountain — A panorama looking across and Ffynnon Llugwy lake the ridgline up do Pen yr Heigi Du

Unfortunately, at this point the Welsh weather descended (literally), and we ended up inside a cloud. Not only was this wet, but it also meant that I didn't take many more photos...

We went up the ridge line a little further and then decided to decend on the other side (before summiting Carnedd Llewelyn) to visit a 1950s plane crash site. On 14 March 1950, an RAF Avro Lincoln clipped the top of the ridge at night tumbling into the vally below. The wreckage is stroon across the vally, so you don't need to look very hard to find it!

A photo of a plane engine in a filed — This is what is left of the Merlin engine

Some metalwork in a lake — The wheels ended up in Flynnon Llyffant lake. The water has preserved the rubber meaning it is still there today.

After this we headed back up and summited Carnedd Llewelyn. Unfortunately, as we did so, the weather got significantly worse, so I did not take any photos at the top (not that you could see more than ~10m anyway). Rather typically, however, as we began to descend, the weather got infinitely better...

Some large moutains surrounded by cloud with the sun starting to poke through — We were descending at sunset which was amazing to look at