Start: The Groes Inn, Llanrwst Road, Conwy, North Wales LL32 8TN (Tel: 01492 650545)
(S/E) From the front door of the Groes Inn, turn right and right again, signposted to Rowen. Follow the road for ¾ mile, passing a house about halfway along.
(1) Shortly after the “new” Llangelynnin Church (now a private residence and artist’s studio), turn left onto a lane that passes a mock-Tudor house and climbs steeply through the trees. At the top of the hill, turn right into the track to Glyn Bach (take either track).
(2) Immediately beyond the house, turn right on a signposted footpath through the gate and garden to a kissing gate into a field. Turn left and walk to the left of a tree-covered knoll. Cross a track and continue in a similar direction, this time passing to the right of the next wooded hillock. After a gate, skirt the trees on your left, then bear right across the field to a stile into pine woodland.
Follow an indistinct path ahead that leads to a footbridge and stile out of the wood. Bear slightly right across the field beyond to a gate. In the next field, bear right again, below the highest part of the ridge, to pick up a track that descends through gorse to Glyn Ucha.
(3) Go through the gate at the bottom and turn right through the farmyard, exiting via the track on the left that passes the farmhouse. Walk down the entrance track to a public road. Cross and go through a kissing gate (not the gate into woods) opposite. Follow the field edge, diverting left round an incursion of the wood into the field (contrary to the OS map). In the far corner, cross a ladder stile on the right and follow the path left out to another stile onto the road.
(4) Turn right and walk down the steep hill. Go over the junction and keep right into the village. Walk past the car park (right) and continue up the village street past the Gwesty Ty Gwyn and then the Zion Chapel. Beyond a pretty row of white-painted cottages follow the road left to a junction, where you turn right.
(5) Wind between more cottages uphill to a road junction. Take the no-through road straight ahead, with the 25% gradient sign. This lane climbs steeply, with a minor respite between two farms, before an even steeper zig-zag ascent through trees with a stream on the left. At the top of the wood the road bends left to Rhiw Youth Hostel.
(6) Here, the lane reduces to a track and continues uphill to a gate onto moorland. Continue to the Maen-y-Bardd burial chamber, just to the right of the track. For the curious, there is a second, less obvious, burial chamber about 120m northeast of Maen-y-Bardd, and a couple of small standing stones just to the east, one built into a wall.
Continuing along the track, beyond a couple of gates, pass a large standing stone on your right as you approach Cae Coch cottage.
(7) After a further gate, at the entrance to the cottage, turn right through another gate and follow the grassy track on the right. Bear right to a gate back onto moorland, with a wall on your right. Continue through another gate and follow the track to the left of a slight rise as it departs from the wall temporarily. After another gate (with ladder stile) you rejoin the wall and continue to a sheepfold with two gates. Follow the broken wall beyond until it joins a more complete wall.
(8) Continuing along the wall (past the small round earthwork of Caer Bach on the left) you reach a triangular walled enclosure, where you bear left towards the conspicuous summit of Craig Celynin. When the tumbledown wall curves to the right, carry straight on, passing below and to the left of the craggy hilltop. The path curves right, around the hill, to a triple gate by a sheepfold and a walled and fenced path continues beyond, above and past a house on the left.
(9) When you reach a junction of paths, turn right over the rise to Llangelynnin Old Church. Having visited the church, continue along the walled path, which descends for 550m to the top of the Parc Mawr woods, fording a small stream at one point. Go through the gate into the wood and follow the obvious descending path ahead.
(10) On meeting a crossing track, turn left (waymarked for horse-riders with yellow arrows). Follow this obvious track as it winds through the woodland, generally descending, for ¾ mile. At one point you can see the Groes Inn in the valley below. Just before you reach the road at the end of the trail, notice a disused mine entrance on the left.
(11) Turn right down the road and follow it past the entrance to Tanrallt Farm. Bear right past an old mill building, then follow the road round a left-hand bend.
(12) At the turning to Rowen keep left, and then keep right at the next junction, into Henryd village. Pass the old chapel on the left and keep straight on up the hill past the primary school.
(13) Partway up the hill, turn right over a ladder stile in the hedge. Cross the first field to another metal ladder stile then descend to a more traditional wooden one. Follow the edge of the field beyond to a fourth ladder stile and bear right along the field boundary, with the slopes of Baclaw Hill rising to your left. Pass above a ruined barn, keeping left of the field boundary until you reach the end.
(14) Here a final ladder stile gives access onto a layby on the B5106. Turn right and walk carefully down the hill back to the Groes Inn. (S/E)
