MARCH 2023 · ADVENTURE
Eryri: Snowdonia - Cwm Idwal
Ogwen Valley, Eryri
Cwm Idwal is a textbook glacial cirque in the literal sense — Darwin visited in 1831, walked through it, and failed to identify what had made it. He came back later and admitted the glaciation was obvious. You can understand the first reading. Standing inside it, the scale is so complete that you can stop seeing it as a shaped thing and start seeing it as just where you are.
In March it still had snow. The crags above the Idwal Slabs held it in the shadows; the moraine was white at the edges. The path from Ogwen comes in through a wooden footbridge over the stream, the valley widening in front of you with the peaks framing the head of the cwm.
That's the frame: pale stone cliffs inverted in dark water, the near-conical peak behind them caught precisely in the surface.
Cwm Idwal — March 2023
Llyn Idwal was almost still. A lone hiker in a yellow jacket appeared at the far edge of the lake, their shape small against the crag reflection. That's the frame: pale stone cliffs inverted in dark water, the near-conical peak behind them caught precisely in the surface. The geometry of it is not something you construct — it's just what the mountain and the lake give you in the right conditions.
The Idwal Slabs are at the back of the cwm, the striated rock face running at an angle that makes them unmistakable. Moss-covered islands of rock break the surface near the shoreline. When the light was low and the clouds moved, the shadows on the cwm walls changed quickly — contrast one moment, flat grey the next.
A second hiker in a gold jacket stood before the cirque further into the morning. By then the snow on the upper walls was catching sunlight. The layering of scree and snow on the rock face has a structure that ice left behind, and the photograph gets some of it — the diagonals, the pale colour, the water below holding a copy of all of it.
Darwin missed it. It's hard to see how.
Lone hiker in yellow jacket beside snowy crags reflected in Llyn Idwal
Snow-capped rock faces overlook Llyn Idwal's still waters
Wooden footbridge over moorland with snowy mountains and stream
Moss-covered rock islands reflect in frozen Llyn Idwal beneath crags
Glacial valley with snowy peaks, stream, and moorland vegetation
Moorland path leads to distant frozen lake and snow-dusted slopes
Dramatic snow-covered crag rises from rocky lakeshore
Snowy mountain walls flank the dark reflective waters below
Striated rock face and frozen lake beneath cloud-shadowed peaks
Conical peak reflects perfectly in still water, snow clinging to slopes
Snow and shadow patterns on rocky cwm walls above glassy lake
Hiker in gold jacket stands before snowy glacial cirque
Layered snow and scree blanket the dramatic cwm's rocky walls
Snowy peaks frame the dark quiet waters of Llyn Idwal
Boulder-strewn shoreline reflects dramatic snow-covered crags
Frozen lake mirrors the pale stone cliffs of the glacial cirque
Scattered rocks dot the shoreline of serene Llyn Idwal basin