Welsh 3000s: The Descents People Underestimate
People worry a lot about being too slow on Crib Goch before a Welsh 3000s attempt.
In reality, that’s rarely the section that causes the biggest problems.
Across the last couple of seasons, the two things I’ve seen make the biggest difference to whether people finish are wet weather and how well they cope with the big rough descents later in the day.
There are three descents in particular that people often underestimate: the steep direct descent into Nant Peris, the gully beside Bristly Ridge and Tryfan’s western gully.
None of them are really normal mountain paths. They’re steep, loose, bouldery or awkward, and by the time you reach the latter two there’s already a lot of ascent in your legs.
They’re also quite difficult things to prepare for if most of your mountain days are spent on good paths. You can be very fit, regularly walk long distances and be comfortable climbing plenty of ascent without necessarily being efficient at moving downhill over steep, loose or broken ground for hours.
The descent into Nant Peris
After Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), the route follows the Llanberis Path and railway for a while before breaking away towards Nant Peris. Around the 610m spot height you cross the fence and the descent starts properly.
There’s a zig-zagging trail initially. It’s already fairly steep, but it soon becomes more eroded before easing very briefly around an area of boggy grass. From there it steepens considerably and you end up with a choice between a horribly loose and eroded mixture of mud and rock in the gully itself, or very steep grass with occasional rocks on either side.
Neither option is particularly pleasant when it’s wet.
After the main gully there’s one final section on a steep muddy and rocky track, or equally steep grass beside it, before you reach the dry stone wall lower down where things finally begin to ease.
From around the 610m spot height you lose roughly 400 metres in about a kilometre.
That is a substantial descent, particularly considering you’re still only coming off the Yr Wyddfa section of the Welsh 3000s.
The way people use their feet here makes a noticeable difference. Decent lugs on footwear are important, especially in the wet, but so is being comfortable edging the boot, side-stepping where appropriate, using the ground to brace against and occasionally putting a hand down rather than simply facing straight downhill and flat-footing everything.
A big slip on some of this ground could have serious consequences.
Quite a few people attempting the Welsh 3000s won’t have encountered this descent before unless they’ve specifically recced it. Even people who spend plenty of time in the mountains may not regularly choose terrain this steep if most of their walking is on established paths.
That’s one of the reasons I’m much more interested in somebody’s experience on rough ground than simply how quickly they can get up Yr Wyddfa.
Wet weather makes all of this harder
Rain certainly doesn’t mean a Welsh 3000s attempt is over. We’ve completed the challenge in wet conditions before.
What it does is make an already difficult day noticeably harder. The lichenous rock around Elidir Fawr, Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach can become incredibly slippery. Steep grass becomes much less forgiving. Mud gets worse. People quite rightly become more cautious on descents, and over a route this long that costs time.
The fairly boring stuff matters as well. Someone decides the rain isn’t quite bad enough for waterproof trousers yet, then an hour later they’re soaked. Food gets left until a proper stop rather than being eaten while moving over easier ground. Layers and kit get repeatedly sorted at standstill.
None of those things is a disaster on its own, but repeat them enough times over a mountain day lasting somewhere around twenty hours or more and they make a real difference.
If it has been raining for much of the day, the Carneddau can also feel genuinely miserable by the time you finally reach them. By that point you have already spent a long time on your feet, and being wet and cold adds another layer to a day that is already physically and mentally demanding.
The descent beside Bristly Ridge
The next big descent comes after Glyder Fach.
There are various ways down beside Bristly Ridge. I generally use the line on the left when facing out, which follows steep rock steps and is actually fairly solid for a while. Once you round the corner and start looking towards Tryfan, the terrain tends to funnel you back towards the main gully.
There are other options as well. The gully itself is a mixture of irregular scree, boulders, bedrock and loose rock. Unfortunately, it isn’t really the sort of continuous scree where you can get into a rhythm and surf your way downhill. It’s too broken and irregular for that.
Further right there are alternative gully and rib lines, with varying amounts of rock steps, scrambling and loose ground. Depending on conditions and the group, you can put together different combinations, but none of them changes the overall nature of the descent. It is steep, awkward ground and it demands a fair amount of concentration.
You lose roughly 200 metres in around 400 metres here.
The gradient is only part of the problem. By this stage you have already climbed well over 2,000 metres and spent hours moving through the Yr Wyddfa massif and the Glyderau.
This is also somewhere I’ve seen small problems become much bigger ones. A sore knee, sore ankle or another niggle which has been manageable earlier in the day can reach the point here where carrying on simply stops being realistic.
Descending steep, irregular ground puts a very different load through tired legs compared with climbing, and there isn’t really an easy version of this section. Even if you avoid the loosest part of the gully, you are still working your way down steep rocky terrain.
At the bottom there is at least a useful decision point. If somebody needs to stop, the Nant Bochlwyd path gives you a way down towards Ogwen. If everyone is still moving well, Tryfan is next.
Tryfan’s western gully
By the time you reach the summit of Tryfan you’re pushing well beyond 2,500 metres of ascent, and there is still a very substantial descent before you reach the A5.
The full western descent loses roughly 600 metres in a little over a kilometre.
The first 150 metres or so is the western gully itself. It feels similarly steep to the Bristly descent, although generally less loose, with repeated rock steps rather than a constant mixture of scree and boulders.
The line I normally use starts on the right when facing out, beyond the large slab spanning the upper gully, before working down through the rocky steps towards the path below.
Once you reach the flagstones, the ground gets technically easier but there is still around another 450 metres to descend before the road.
By then you’ve already spent a long time concentrating on rough ground and you are likely to be properly tired. The path is more straightforward than the upper gully, but it still keeps going and going, with flagstones, bits of rock and occasional grass all the way down towards the A5.
There is actually a fell race down this side of Tryfan, the Tryfan Downhill Dash, which gives some idea of how direct the descent is. The race is around 1km with 680m of descent, and in August 2026 Euan Patton set a new course record of 6 minutes 46 seconds.
Clearly that isn’t a remotely sensible pace to have in mind during the Welsh 3000s.
For most people, the useful thing is simply being able to continue descending accurately and reasonably efficiently when the legs are tired and concentration has already been going for hours.
Crib Goch often isn’t where the time disappears
None of this means Crib Goch isn’t important. You still need to be comfortable scrambling, moving around exposure and dealing with the terrain, and somebody who is very nervous there can obviously lose time.
But with a reasonably confident group, Crib Goch often isn’t where the large chunks of time disappear. Even in the wet, a steady group can normally cross it without losing enormous amounts of time.
What seems to catch people out more is the cumulative effect of the rough ground which follows. The direct descent into Nant Peris, the awkward terrain beside Bristly Ridge and Tryfan’s western gully all demand concentration at stages when fatigue is becoming increasingly important.
Add wet grass, slippery rock, scree, boulders, awkward traverses and repeated steep descents, and the physical effort is only part of it. You are also making hundreds of small decisions about where to put your feet and how to move efficiently over ground which never really lets you switch off.
Someone can have plenty of hillwalking experience on good or flagstoned paths and still find this surprisingly difficult. It’s perfectly possible to be very fit and have covered lots of mountain mileage without having spent much time continuously moving over terrain like this.
Training for the Welsh 3000s descents
If you’re preparing for the Welsh 3000s, I’d make sure some of your training deliberately includes steep and awkward descents rather than concentrating entirely on distance and ascent totals.
That doesn’t mean looking for dangerous terrain for the sake of it. It means becoming comfortable on the sort of ground the challenge actually contains. Spend time descending scree, broken rock, boulders and steep grass, and try doing some of it when there is already fatigue in your legs rather than always putting the roughest terrain at the start of a fresh day.
Wet-weather experience is useful too, when conditions are sensible enough to be out. If every long training day happens in the dry, you don’t really know what rain does to your pace, your footwear, your clothing system or your confidence on steep ground.
You may find that a pair of boots you love on dry rock is much less convincing on wet grass. You may discover that your waterproof trousers are a nightmare to get on over your boots, or that you naturally slow down much more on wet rock than you expected.
All of that is useful information to have before the day itself.
I’d also pay attention to how you manage food, water and clothing while you’re moving. On a long day, every little job doesn’t need to become a full stop. Easier sections of ground are often the best time to eat, drink or sort a layer while still keeping some progress going.
None of this is particularly glamorous training, but it is much closer to the reality of the Welsh 3000s than simply chasing bigger and bigger mileage numbers.
Welsh 3000s Preparation Days
This is a big part of what I’m trying to do with Mountain Craft’s Welsh 3000s Preparation Days.
They aren’t route recces and they aren’t general hill-fitness days. The idea is to spend a substantial day in the mountains dealing with the things that genuinely affect a Welsh 3000s attempt: sustained ascent and descent, rough ground, pacing, food and hydration, clothing and kit, moving efficiently and seeing what happens once fatigue starts building.
We’ll normally aim for at least 1,500 metres of ascent and, depending on the group and conditions, potentially closer to 2,000 metres. The exact route isn’t fixed because walking one particular section of the Welsh 3000s isn’t necessarily the most useful preparation for everybody.
The Preparation Days are open whether you are joining Mountain Craft for the challenge itself or planning an independent attempt. If you are still deciding what sort of Welsh 3000s experience you want, Mountain Craft also runs the challenge in 24 hours, over three days and as a private objective.
The main thing I’d take from all of this is not that Crib Goch matters less. It’s that training shouldn’t stop with Crib Goch.
If you can move well over steep, awkward ground when you’re tired, manage yourself properly in the wet and still descend with some confidence after thousands of metres of ascent, you are preparing for much more of what the Welsh 3000s actually asks of you.
Planning a Welsh 3000s attempt?
Mountain Craft runs dedicated preparation days alongside guided 24-hour, three-day and private Welsh 3000s options in Eryri.
