Snowdon Maps and Access

As far as Snowdon Maps and Access go, the OS Explorer maps at 1:25,000 scale show access land that has a Right to Roam. However, this isn’t as important as you might think. As someone who walks often in Snowdonia, we noticed no changes to the way we plan our walks when this legislation was brought in a few years ago. Access in Eryri has been good thanks to efforts of the National Park and local landowners.

The pink Landranger maps don’t show the right to roam areas, but we think they lack detail compared to the Explorer maps. Harvey maps do a 1:40,000 Mountain map that covers most of North Snowdonia. It’s an excellent map that has just enough information, but suffers as it’s a non-standard scale and can be awkward to measure distances on the map. While they’ve been coloured in to show height more effectively than the OS maps, they have contours at 15m intervals, rather than the standard 10m which can be confusing.

If you haven’t used British OS maps before, then rest assured that the quality of the maps place them amongst the world’s best. You can even get them for viewing on your PC, with the likes of Tracklogs and Memory Maps or their very own Ordnance Survey Maps.

You can plan your route on there and then transfer your route to a GPS device. Navigating by GPS can often be quicker, and we find it useful for the GPS to beep whenever you pass a waypoint – meaning we’re still on track. GPSs are only an aid to navigation and should be used as such.

Remember that the GPS files for all the routes up Snowdon are available on this site for you to download and load onto your device FREE of charge!

For your convenience here’s our full recommended list of maps for your walk up Snowdon:

OS Explorer OL17 Snowdon & Conwy Valley

MiniMap | Snowdon

Snowdonia BMC (British Mountain Map)

Snowdonia North XT25

For an in-depth article on the relative merits of each map, read this article by our sister site Mud and Routes 5 Things – What Map?

Wondering what else you might need for a safe walk up Snowdon? Check out our equipment and gear page which includes a full gear checklist for both Summer and Winter.

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2 thoughts on “Snowdon Maps and Access”

  1. Richard Page

    My wife has a rough terrain wheelchair (Mountainbike wheels etc) & we do many outdoor paths. We are hoping it may be possible to take the train to the top of Snowdon & wheel her down. (I am quite practised at this). Can you advise if the path is really rocky etc.
    If it is so rocky as to be out of the question, can you advise how far up the tarmac path goes? Is it possible to get off the train near the end of this bit & join it for the remainder of the walk down?
    We will be grateful for any feedback.
    Thank you…….. Richard &Jan Page

    1. Dave Roberts

      Hi Richard.
      The Llanberis path can be rough in places and was recently driven up by a 4×4, but I really don’t feel I can give you any specific advice on weather the path is suitable for an all terrain wheelchair as the path is pretty rough for most of the way. My gut feeling would be no, but that’s only as I have no experience in doing so.
      The main problem is the final section from the summit as there are some eroded bits with maybe 30cm+ drops and loads of people too. There’s a nice wide flat bit then that I’m sure would be OK – before you have a loose scree like path to Clogwyn and a very rough descent down Allt Moses. From that point downwards the path becomes much more benign and would count as a typically rough path. If it helps, people do mountain bike down the mountain – here’s a link to one of the upper section that might give you a better idea of what to expect and make the judgement call. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqUFUQuygvs&feature=related

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