Yes the A5 - that iconic road linking London to Holyhead. Actually it's the old A5 - a 3.7 section of the old coach road that used to link Capel Curig with Ogwen that was made redundant by Thomas Telford's better engineered A5. Now reclaimed from being churned up by the off road brigade, this now forms a public path with a cafe, toilets and car park at either end, and even has a bus service if you only want to walk one way....
We chose to try a section on my birthday treat weekend to get away from all those trains - there was snow everywhere and quite a lot of it too - the path starts from the roadside just south of Ogwen - you can park right there if you want too - and sets off towards the imposing mass of Tryfan before turning parallel with the road. We witnessed a great crowd of folk abseiling down a huge slab of rock soon after we started walking, and soon realised that this valley was far warmer than we had expected, so layers started coming off.
Underfoot though it was very soggy and muddy. The path is managed by the National Park Authority and while a lot of slate chippings have been laid in places, there is a lot of mud to negotiate. A great wooden bridge crosses a stream that appears to flood to about 4 feet deep at times and a little later there is another huge fold of rock pushed up from the earth to your right.
We peeled off the path at the camp site to climb up towards a reservoir on the other side of the main road - this afforded fantastic views up the vally towards Ogwen with so much snow on the mountains. The snow on the path up was patchy but well over knee deep in places - great fun!
We'll be back to walk the whole path soon I think.
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