Clogwyn Du'r Arddu


Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, on the north flank of Snowdon, is considered by many to be one of the best climbing cliffs in Britain. It is north-facing and comparatively remote. It lends its name to Clogwyn station on the Snowdon Mountain Railway which overlooks it. "Clogwyn Du'r Arddu" translates as "Dark, Black Cliff"
Climbers who have contributed to the many high-quality routes on the cliff included John Streetly Jack Longland, Ron James, Colin Kirkus, Joe Brown, Don Whillans, Fred Pigott and Johnny Dawes.

First recorded ascent

The first recorded climb on the cliff was the 1798 ascent of the Eastern Terrace by Peter Bailey Williams and William Bingley, botanists looking for alpine plants. The latter wrote:

General history

The north facing cliff is regarded as the premier high-grade traditional mountaineering crag in the United Kingdom. Clogwyn Du'r Arddu combines the steepness, size, seriousness and quality of rock which it shares with the likes of Carn Dearg on Ben Nevis, but unlike the Scottish cliff maintained a continuous record of having the most difficult climbs from the 1930s to the 2000s.
The cliff has attracted leading climbers of many eras, from the Abrahams through Kirkus, Harding, Brown, Whillans, Crew, Edwards, Ward-Drummond, Redhead and finally Dawes. No other cliff has a comparable sequence of serious climbs.