Foel Goch trail head by Pentre.
| Foel Goch from Pentre Foel Goch |
| Estimated net time | 2-2½ hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but a little boggy in places. | ||
| Drinking water | The water from the stream along the start of the route might be OK for drinking. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (March 2013). | ||
| Parking | Room for one car (potentially two) at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 305 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 310 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 5.5 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the A494/A4212 junction in the village Bala drive road A494 4.5 km north-east, and turn left where it's signed right for "Llandderfel". Follow this road 1.5 km and turn left where a small wooden sign points towards "Pentre". Drive approximately 450 metres uphill and park on the left hand side of the road, just before a gate.
Start your hike by following the road past the gate, and 300 metres to the farm. When you get to the farm there is a foot path sign pointing towards the field on the right hand side. Cross the gate onto the (likely muddy) field, and turn left in order to follow the fence between the field and the farm buildings. Leave the foot path after less than 100 metres by descending down to a farm road through a small gate. Follow this road, which soon becomes a wide path, along the stream. Cross the stream on the wooden bridge after 600 metres, and continue another 350 metres along the path. This path continues to the pass east of Foel Goch, but instead of continuing on the path you should walk straight towards the summit. The ground is likely to be a little wet in places, and there's a short section of large heather, but once you get to the hill it's relatively easy going, The summit is marked by a concrete cairn, as well as another two markers.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
After three hikes yesterday I had fallen asleep quite early, despite the noise in the Bala streets following Wales' 30-3 trashing of England in the final game of the Six Nations. I therefore woke up quite early and decided to repeat what I did yesterday; a hike before breakfast. And with reasonable weather I decided to go for Foel Goch.
Finding trail head proved straight forward, and there were even signs for the public foot path around the farm. I then followed the wide path along the stream, but the path soon got fairly overgrown, so after a few hundred metres I decided to leave the path and instead head straight for the summit. My direct approach worked out well, and except for a couple of short sections of marsh and heather it was relatively firm ground, and not terribly boggy.
As I approached the summit I had the pleasure to hike in sunny conditions, and with ~20 cm snow on the ground I almost got the Easter skiing feeling. But the summit views were mostly obstructed by clouds, so my summit stop was a short one. And since breakfast was waiting back at the hotel, and I wanted to get some time at the computer to plan my next hike this Sunday before I had to check out. So I kept a decent pace back down to the car. Unfortunately the first part of the drive took a bit more time than anticipated since the I had to reverse back down the 450 metres to the bigger road (not enough space to turn around where I had parked).