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Looking back over recent posts, you could be forgiven in thinking that I had moved to Scotland – two trips to the Highlands in 2022 had given some good days in the hills, but the hills of North Wales (where I now call home) were being somewhat neglected.  Then in October 2022, a spell of fine autumn weather meant that I couldn’t keep putting off a trip that had been waiting in the wings for a couple of years – we were off to the limestone hills of the Eglwyseg valley, near Llangollen.

Chris and I first visited these hills in 2013 (see post #144) but I hadn’t returned here other than for mountain rescue callouts with the team I’m a member of (North East Wales Search And Rescue, or NEWSAR for short).  The area isn’t as popular or busy as Eryri (Snowdonia), but over the past few years, the team has been called here to a range of incidents including rock-climbing accidents, medical emergencies, cragfast sheep and mountain bike injuries.  It was time to get back there for some recreational walking.

The hills lie between the southern end of Bryniau Clwyd (the Clwydian Range) and Dyffryn Dyfrdwy (the Dee Valley) – if I had to give the area a name, it would be the Llangollen Hills.  The route I had in mind, and which I had been putting off for some time, was along the top of the Eglwyseg Escarpment to ‘Worlds End’ with a return along the Offa’s Dyke Path, the national trail following the rough line of the Welsh-English border from Chepstow to Prestatyn.

The idea for the trip had come from a long-lost magazine article – I had made a note of the route at the time, but when we arrived on the ground, there were a series of reasons for convenience and navigation which meant the route was altered as we went along, so in the map above our actual route is in red, travelling anti-clockwise from the red cross, with the blue dashes showing what had been the original plan, but abandoned on this trip.

We started on the road, on the well-known Panorama Walk.  The road walking was short, no more than a couple of hundred metres, but then it was time to start uphill – it was never steep, just steady away gaining height gradually, until we finally reached the top edge of the escarpment.  The autumn colours were in evidence, and we had a view on to familiar ground that we had walked before, first of all Castell Dinas Bran (see post #243) seen below us, then Llantysilio Mountain (see post #122) in the middle distance.

Once we were on the escarpment, most of the uphill walking was behind us, with a gently undulating path taking us along escarpment views of descending streams, limestone crags and heather moorland.  Hiking really doesn’t get much easier than this, so apart from the distance (14kms / 8.7 miles) it was looking like being a relaxed day.

The summit of Craig Arthur had been on the original route, but rather than descend to this mini-plateau, we opted to stay high, heading towards Worlds End and the crags of Craig y Forwyn, one of the popular limestone rock-climbing crags in this part of Wales.  This was to be our turning point to take us back to Trevor Rocks, following the Offa’s Dyke Path.

We hit a cheeky little descent route, heading down towards the Eglwyseg Valley and the Offa’s Dyke Path.  The ODP cuts across the scree below Craig Arthur, whose summit we had declined on the way out.  The view from below was impressive, looking up to the climbing crag of Craig Arthur, another nationally important rock-climbing crag.  Then it was a steady descent to the quiet road used by the ODP – I don’t normally go for road walking, but this must be one of the quietest roads in Wales, and the easy walking gave ample opportunity to take in the autumn colours as we headed for home.

Text and images © Paul Shorrock