Escaping the crowds in Snowdonia | Afon Cynfal

Summer photography can be quite challenging, harsh light, hazy days, low water levels in the rivers and lakes and our favourite quiet locations suddenly become incredibly busy, especially this year! In this vlog I try to use the summer time to my advantage for the autumn and winter months ahead and set out on what might be an impossible mission…. escaping the crowds in Snowdonia during the summer school holidays!

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Location Information: Afon Cynfal

This information is not intended to be a complete guide to visiting Afon Cynfal but is aimed at providing a little bit more information about the location to accompany the vlog and to tempt you into visiting it for yourselves.

After all, your time will always be better spent being outdoors, exploring and photographing these beautiful landscapes for yourself, not reading about them on a screen.

Information:

Well, this was a bit of a hidden gem!

The route I took into the gorge for this vlog was pretty hard going at times (I probably could’ve done with a machete to hack through a few of the really overgrown areas) but the walk along the railway line is, in general, pretty gentle and the reward of such a fantastic gorge made the nettle stings and bramble scratches well worth it on this trip!

Autumn and winter should allow slightly easier access along the railway but having followed a lower route out of the gorge and back to the village of Llan Ffestiniog, walking along the railway would not be my first choice to access the gorge if I was just visiting for photography. However, it is definitely worth doing to complete the circular walk.

The gorge sits within the Ceunant Cynfal National Nature Reserve which is one of a number of nature reserves in the Vale of Ffestiniog known as the Meirionydd Oakwoods. These woods are remnants of Atlantic Oakwoods that once covered much of the coasts of Europe, they are also sometimes referred to as the ‘Celtic Rainforest’ because of the high humidity found within these woodlands.

I’ve been to a few temperate rain forests across the world and this definitely feels like one, you can feel the humidity increase as you enter the gorge. Moss coats the steep walls of the gorge and ferns and lichens are abundant. The trees around the river are predominantly Sessile oak and have grown into some fantastic shapes, trunks and branches covered in moss. The waterfalls are spectacular, or certainly have the potential to be spectacular with a little bit more water flowing over them and a decent water level should clear some of the fallen branches and tree trunks from the base of the gorge making it even more photogenic.

To add to the natural beauty there is a little bit of man made… an impressive triple arch viaduct towers over the upper gorge (it features briefly in the vlog) which, on a day with the right conditions, would definitely feature in a photograph or two. The railway line is no longer in use (obviously, as I was walking along it) but this section of the line remains in-situ and there have been plans to restore it over the years. If that does happen it would put an end to the walk along the railway line but I can’t help but feel that watching a steam engine crossing over this viaduct from the valley floor would be a sight worth seeing!

This was my first visit to Afon Cynfal but it won’t be my last. Even during the summer months and after a long period of dry weather the gorge, waterfalls and surrounding woodland offered enough to get me excited for a return visit when the weather is a little more miserable and the water flow is a little higher. Autumn seems like it’s going to be pretty special here!

The biggest surprise of my Afon Cynfal visit was just how quiet it was. In the height of the school summer holidays and in a year when so many people are staying in the UK for their holidays rather than going abroad, I came across only two or three other people in the six hours that I spent in and around the gorge.

I can’t wait for my next visit to Afon Cynfal!

Recent blog posts

Here are some more of my recent blog posts covering my YouTube vlogs – watch the video, read about the locations and have another look at the photos I managed to capture.

Searching for bluebells in the Cambrian Mountains

Landscape photography with a telephoto lens | Foel Fadian

Waterfall photography in southern Snowdonia | Dolgoch Falls

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