The Great Orme

Sunday 9th September

Distance: 8km; Ascent: 330m; dry and windy; with Lynsey & Isabel

See tracked route in new window

It had been a while since we had taken Isabel up a hill, and so this is what we did today!  We considered various hills closer to Porthmadog before settling on Great Orme, as a) it wasn't a long day, b) it was on our way home and c) I've been wanting to go and explore it for a while.  Therefore it seemed like an ideal plan for the day!

We parked in Llandudno and, after a picnic lunch in the car, we set off walking at around 12:30pm and wandered down towards the beach before picking up a well waymarked path towards the summit, which ascended steeply up through the Happy Valley Gardens.

Waymarks

A ski slope!

Once out of the gardens we stumbled upon a ski slope and toboggan run, which looked to be a popular place to be today.  Higher up the angle of the ground eased and we soon spotted the cable car and half-way tram station; there seemed to be a multitude of possible ways to climb this hill!

Cable car

The busy looking upper slopes of the Great Orme

An ancient copper mine

At around 2pm we reached the trig point on the summit of Great Orme (Marilyn).  It was quite windy up here but the views were excellent, especially across Conwy Bay towards the northern Carneddau.  There were however a large complex of buildings near the summit, complete with a car park, which did detract slightly from the views.

Summit trig point on the Great Orme

Lots of buildings on the summit of Great Orme

We left the summit buildings, with their masses of people, and descended down a much quieter path :-)  After heading south west for a few hundred metres, we made an abrupt right turn to follow another path north west with steep ground to our left; this section was very windy!  There were good views though:

Looking across Conwy Bay towards the Carneddau

We descended down a steep traversing path to reach the road, before picking up another less obvious path.  This had some interesting short steep ascents below the cliffs but eventually brought us to Haulfre Gardens, where we stopped for an excellent ice cream before returning to the car at around 4pm.  A pleasant afternoon stroll :-)

Looking across Conwy Bay

N.B. 30/10/12 - Post date updated to actual date of walk, i.e. 09/09/12, (from 17/09/12)