Homegrown Himalayas: how to go hiking with children in Eryri National Park

Thinking about hiking with children? Chris Allsop takes his young family hiking in Wales and is surprised to discover more than a hint of the Himalayas in Eryri National Park.

Rafe and Ada jumping waterfalls, Eryri National Park ©Chris Allsop

Eryri National Park: prime territory for hiking with children

Living in southwest England with its hills gently rolling and thickets  of woodland, hiking with children in north Wales has become an annual family pilgrimage, 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 with children, 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).

Llyn Gwynant, Eryri National Park, Wales ©Chris Allsop

Llyn Gwynant: best base for easy family hiking in 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.

Camping, Llyn Gwynant, North Wales ©Visit Wales

North Wales delivers four seasons, most often in one day

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 the fire, crack out the card games, and watch the soggy thrushes, coal tits, and occasional woodpecker have a crack at the seed balls through the cottage windows. Then the sunshine sears, the lake glitters, and the hail melts away into the lush grass.

At this point, wetsuits are donned, and a canoe is launched into the lake (some of the cottages come equipped, or you can hire from the campsite).

The destination is usually Elephant Rock – a crag sitting on the waterline with ledges at varying heights for children to test their courage and plunge in.

Beddgelert: Welsh myths make hiking with children plenty fun

In the spring, you have Elephant Rock all to yourself, although the chill, often-slate-grey water is less inviting. Summer, we found to our pleasure, brings an inviting ultramarine glow beneath the lake’s translucent surface.

If the wetsuits are still damp from yesterday’s lake adventure, there are excellent non-swimming and non-hiking with children possibilities from this relatively central point in the park’s northern half.

Under ten minutes’ drive south from Llyn Gwynant is Beddgelert – a postcard-perfect grey stone village with a dynamite ice cream parlour. It sits on the confluence of the Colwyn and the Glaslyn rivers, and there’s a gentle walk along a gorge that ties in a visit to the burial spot of Gelert – the town’s namesake legendary hound that saved a baby from a wolf (it’s an old story, don’t worry).

For lunch, strike out for Caffi Gwynant on the road between Beddgelert and Llyn Gwynant – a converted chapel-turned-hipster-ish restaurant serving southern fried chicken with chive waffle nachos, and other classic Welsh dishes.

Harlech Castle, North Wales ©Visit Wales

Harlech: no shortage of castles when you’re hiking in Wales

Eryri isn’t just about the mountains. A drive of 40 minutes south brings you to coastal Harlech, where the headline draw is the fantastic 13th century castle. Afterwards, run through the dunes until you reach the broad sandy beach, ideal for kite flying, with views back into the sky-scraping hinterland.

Zipline face first across a quarry, only in Eryri National Park

For those seeking high-octane thrills, a 40-minute drive in the other direction from Llyn Gwynant brings you to Zip World Penrhyn Quarry. Here you have the chance to travel at 100mph face-first on a zipline across a quarry.

If you’d like to travel face-first down some waterfalls instead, you can book canyoning with Snowdonia Adventure Activities at the gorgeous run of falls near Yr Wyddfa’s Watkins Path.

Ada and Rafe, Elephant Rock, North Wales ©Chris Allsop

Where to find real Everest adventures hiking in Wales

Just a few minutes north from the lake is the Pen-Y-Gwryd Hotel. It’s famous as the place where Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay based themselves while training for their ascent of Everest, on the boulder-strewn flanks of Snowdon.

It’s a splendid place for a drink, with little nooks to settle into for chats after a good tramp. With younger kids, you want to find a spot in the large seating area just to the left as you enter. Also, every time we’ve been there, this area has been almost entirely ours except for a couple of hikers and a damp dog steaming beside the fire.

There’s an Everest shrine with crampons, ropes, and woolly hats set into the wall in the hotel’s inner sanctum. It’s really only accessible to those staying in the rooms, but if you ask the bar staff for a peek, they’re usually very accommodating (especially if you’ve an eager seven-year-old with you). That evening, after leaving the Pen-Y-Gwryd hopped up on squash and Everest lore, Ada and Rafe were gung-ho for tackling Yr Wyddfa.

Yr Wyddfa, North Wales ©Chris Allsop

Always plan a good snack strategy when you’re hiking with children

Come morning, the walls of the tent aglow with the rising sun, their passions had subsided. Mine too. Plotting the careful snack strategy for four to six hours of uphill walking felt like an adventure for another year.

However, having already completed some longer scrambles nearby, as well as launching origami boats in little streams and passing mossy-roofed cottages that seemed half sunk into the slate-scattered soil, we decided it was time to try something a little more ambitious.

Ada hiking in Wales ©Chris Allsop

Child-friendly walking paths are many in Eryri National Park

With the skies bright blue and the distant waterfalls like seams of white marble,  we made our way along snaking roads, over a bridge straddling a gorge, to the beginning of a National Trust trail. The organisation helps maintain several excellent walks and historic buildings in the area (Craflwyn Estate, near Beddgelert, has a display about the Gwynedd Princes and a walk up to Dinas Emrys – the birthplace of Wales’s red dragon).

Though one we found, a little further south, was good for kids who are building their endurance and enjoyment of hiking.

The path follows a steady, easy incline, running alongside a river that dives out of sight, occasionally tumbling into picturesque falls. You quickly feel submerged in the landscape, the smell of bracken in the warm air, distant peaks appearing behind small seas of rolling foothills. For some of the path, wide flat stones are laid out. Ada and Rafe kicked off their shoes and hopped between them.

Cnicht: scouting Snowdonia’s Matterhorn, for next time

Towards the end of the week, when I’m itching to hike and the rest of the family are a bit hiked out and just happy relaxing at the campsite, I eschew a chance at Yr Wyddfa (thinking of those queues for the summit that draw a less appealing similarity to Everest) and instead hike ‘Snowdonia’s Matterhorn’, or Cnicht.

Also, much quicker, no queues (only a handful of other hikers), just the right amount of scrambling, and views to the sea.

Now that’s it’s been scouted out, next year we may have a family crack at Cnicht, particularly as we have the snack strategy already tried and tested.