Qualla: Llanberis Pass

Llanberis Pass: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The road squeezes between two of the highest mountain ranges in Wales for three and a half miles, and on a clear evening every layby along it holds a car with chalk-dust on the seats. The Llanberis Pass, summit elevation 359 metres, carries the A4086 over Pen-y-Pass and down into the village of Nant Peris. It is a road that drivers think of as a scenic alternative to the A5. To climbers, it is something closer to a sanctuary. The cliffs flanking the road - Dinas Cromlech, Carreg Wastad, Clogwyn y Grochan, Craig Ddu, Dinas Mot - are the lecture theatre where modern British rock climbing learned what was possible.

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Llanberis Pass: Between Snowdon and the Glyderau

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The pass is a glacial defile, cut by ice that drained northwest from the high ground around Pen-y-Pass. To its south rises the Snowdon massif; to its north, the Glyderau, anchored by Glyder Fawr at 1,001 metres. The Nant Peris valley descends from the summit to the village, then ...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Llanberis Pass: The Crucible of British Climbing

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NoelWalley at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The cliffs on the north side - Dinas Cromlech, Carreg Wastad, Clogwyn y Grochan, called the Three Cliffs - became one of the testing grounds for serious British rock climbing in the 1930s. Dinas Cromlech holds Cenotaph Corner, a Joe Brown route from 1952 still climbed today, poss...

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Image: NoelWalley at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Llanberis Pass: The Battle of the Boulders

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Home Lizars, Public domain. In 1973 the local authority announced a road-widening scheme along the Llanberis Pass that would have destroyed the Cromlech Boulders - a cluster of large roadside rocks famous among boulderers and as a route-finding landmark. The proposal triggered a six-year protest campaign by...

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Image: William Home Lizars | Public domain

Llanberis Pass: Pen-y-Pass and Pen-y-Gwryd

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nigel Brown, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two hotels bookend the pass. At the western summit, the Pen-y-Pass Hotel is now a YHA youth hostel; from its car park three different paths set off up Snowdon - the Pyg Track, the Miners' Track, and the Crib Goch start - while two more lead east to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach. Th...

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Image: Nigel Brown | CC BY-SA 2.0

Llanberis Pass: Walls of Memory

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit alan fairweather, CC BY-SA 2.0. What is striking about the Llanberis Pass is how much human history sits on its cliffs in invisible ink. Every line on Dinas Cromlech has a name, a grade, and a story attached - the first ascent, the first solo, the first repeat. The crag, rated by guidebook authors as one of the...

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Image: alan fairweather | CC BY-SA 2.0