WALES
STILL WATER Clockwise from left: Rafe and Ada jumping waterfalls; mirror-like Llyn Gwynant
or my family, living in southwest England with its hills gently rolling and thickets of woodland, a trip to north Wales has become an annual family pilgrimage How discovering a corner of the Himalayas in North Wales inspired Chris Allsop and his young family to (slightly) greater hiking feats. F in search of the wild. Eryri National Park (the rechristened Snowdonia) offers that sense of true wilderness; over 200,000 hectares of moss-hung oak forest and moody, shaley peaks, with, at its heart, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), southern Britain’s highest summit. Beyond the hiking, there’s also ziplining in Eryri, canyoning down crystal-clear waterfalls, and plenty of history (including a UNESCO-listing for ‘The Slate Landscape of North-West Wales). We usually base ourselves close to Llyn Gwynant – a lozenge-shaped lake of fresh, wonderfully unpolluted water that sits at the foot of Yr Wyddfa. It’s in the north half of the park, a good four-hour drive along increasingly spectacular roads, past innumerable sheep and chevrons of geese in flight. At one end of the lake is the Llyn Gwynant campsite, where we pitched our tent for the week. There is also a scattering of lakeview cottages to rent. Usually travelling in spring, a cottage with its log fire and central heating (and occasional sound of mice going about their business in the eaves) has been essential. That season’s famously changeable nature is turbo-charged in the mountains – you really can have all four seasons in a day, sometimes just the morning. Of course, in north Wales, this is neither unexpected nor entirely unwelcome. It suits the moody landscape (something to consider during the UK’s next monsoon summer). You stoke up
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