Ceridwen's Canvas: Cwm Idwal in frosty, bleak February

In the last few days, I went to Cwm Idwal. On the way we saw big icicles around a meter long, and the mountains were sugar-dusted with snow.

It's one of the few places in Britain where you can see Artic-Alpine plants, and it's a site of Special Scientific Interest. We just walked up to the lake, and from what I saw, it's quite an easy walk which some steeps sections, so it's ok for children if you just keep to the lake. It would be a nice place for a picnic in the summer.

There are quite a few bleak pictures of Snowdonia on the internet, and they give the impression that Snowdonia is always like this when it's not. The Snowdonia area is incredibly green as well because of the high rainfall.

This is path we followed.

Llyn Idwal (Lake of Idwal)

There are a few opinions as to why it is called Llyn Idwal, but one of the most common stories surrounding this lake is that it was named when Idwal, son of the prince of Gwynedd in the 12th century, decided to entrust the care of his son to Nefydd Hardd. Nefydd was jealous of Idwal because he was more talented than his own son, so he pushed Idwal into the lake, where he drowned. Owain banished Nefydd from the kingdom, and named the lake after his son.

To give you an idea of scale, you can just about see little dots where there are 3 people in the above photograph. They are on grassy area, near the horizon a little towards the left.

Several people have died whilst walking on Glyderau, which is the group of peaks in this area, and even experienced walkers have died. When we were there, there was a group of people around 20 years old, who looked like they had come from a city on holiday. They were wearing baseball jackets, and hip-hop style clothes with no gloves, no proper coats, just hoodies.

As you can see from the frozen water in the waterfall, it was just above freezing, and we decided to turn back because it was starting to snow lightly.