Two lakes, two free car parks, and one genuinely demanding forest trail if you want to see both in one visit.
CHECK FIRST · SAFETY
Both lakes are unstaffed, so visitors are responsible for their own safety. Llyn Geirionydd is up to 12 metres deep and cold; swimming and non-motorised craft are permitted, but there is nobody on site if it goes wrong.
Time needed
Half a day for both lakes · a short stop for either alone
Best time
No official seasonal guidance · dry spells suit the forest trails
Opening, entry & booking
Open access, free, no booking · free NRW car parks at both lakes
Access & difficulty
Crafnant’s Afon Crafnant Amble, 0.6km, wheelchair-suitable
Parking & start point
Free at both car parks · no overnight stays
Getting there
~4 miles west of Llanrwst · use the OS grid refs, not postcodes
Toilets, food & facilities
Toilets: Crafnant all day, Geirionydd 9am–7pm · café at Crafnant
Dogs
No NRW rule published · bring a lead: open water and forest tracks
Plan with confidence.Detailed information on arrival, access, facilities, restrictions and local conditions.
Opening, entry & booking
Open
Both lakes are open access all year, free, with no ticket and no booking. They sit in Gwydir Forest Park within Eryri National Park.
Car parks
Free NRW car parks at both: Crafnant at OS grid SH 756 618, Geirionydd at SH 763 604. Blue Badge spaces at each. No overnight parking.
Toilet hours differ
Crafnant's toilets are open at all times; Geirionydd's are open 9am–7pm and locked overnight. The two sites are not run to one timetable.
On the water
At Geirionydd, swimming and non-motorised craft are permitted from the NRW car park; water-skiing is by permit only through the Llyn Geirionydd Water Skiing Club.
Unstaffed
Neither site is staffed; there is nobody to ask, and visitors are responsible for their own safety.
Parking, start point & arrival
Crafnant
Free NRW car park, OS grid SH 756 618, just before the lake. Blue Badge spaces, no overnight parking. Open the Crafnant car park in Google Maps; the LL27 0JZ postcode covers a wide area and will not take you to the entrance.
Toilets open at all times, reported accessible. A privately-run lakeside café sits at the car park; NRW does not publish its hours.
Geirionydd
Toilets open 9am–7pm, locked overnight. No café or refreshments on site.
Accessibility & terrain
The accessible option
Crafnant's Afon Crafnant Amble is a 0.6 km wheelchair-suitable trail: the one genuinely accessible route at either lake.
Everything else
Forest and lakeside tracks with uneven, rooty and often wet ground; the longer waymarked routes climb.
Parking
Blue Badge spaces at both car parks, close to the lakeshore.
Toilets
Crafnant's are reported accessible; Geirionydd's are open only 9am–7pm.
Water's edge
Geirionydd is up to 12 metres deep and cold, with no shallow margin in places; keep children and dogs close.
Dogs & restrictions
Rule
No dog rule is published for either site by Natural Resources Wales. Bring a lead, just in case.
Safety, weather & local conditions
Both sites
Unstaffed: visitors are responsible for their own safety.
Geirionydd water
Up to 12 metres deep and cold; swimming and non-motorised craft are permitted from the NRW car park, water-skiing by permit only via the Llyn Geirionydd Water Skiing Club.
Geirionydd signal
Mobile reception is reported poor; plan navigation before you arrive.
Connecting trail
Forest roads, tarmac and narrow footpath (under 80cm in places), mud, rocks, tree roots, two small fords, and two forest barriers with a roughly 70cm gap.
Emergency
In an emergency, call 999.
Swimming
Allowed at Geirionydd; water-skiing by permit only
PLACE-SPECIFIC DETAILS
Other place details
Connecting trail
4.2 miles / 6.8km, Strenuous · fords & forest barriers
Signal & staffing
Both sites unstaffed; Geirionydd signal is poor
History underfoot
Former lead-mine ground; Taliesin Monument above Geirionydd
What to bring
Walking shoes
Waterproof layer
Water
Snacks
Camera
Two lakes. One demanding trail.
Crafnant is the easier of the two: a free car park a short walk from the water, a dedicated accessible amble, and a privately-run lakeside café. Geirionydd is different: its car park sits on a former lead-mine waste tip, there's no café, mobile signal is poor, and it's the one Gwydir Forest lake where swimming, paddling and permit-only water-skiing are all allowed.
The only official route between them is Natural Resources Wales's Geirionydd and Crafnant Trail: graded Strenuous, with narrow footpath, mud, two small fords and two forest barriers. It passes ground shaped by mining, and a monument on the hillside above Geirionydd to Taliesin, the earliest Welsh poet whose work survives.
Forest trail linking the two lakes, mining ground underfoot.
Should this shape your day?
Free to park at either lake, but the only route between them is a proper forest walk, not a stroll.
Good fit for
families wanting a short, level lakeside walk at Crafnant
walkers and anglers wanting a genuine forest route with heritage
anyone curious about Gwydir Forest's mining past
swimmers and paddlers wanting open lake access at Geirionydd
Think twice if
you want a quick, easy link between the two lakes
you need step-free access beyond Crafnant's short trail
you're relying on your phone at Geirionydd; signal is poor
you're bringing a dog and need a confirmed rule; none exists
Both sites are unstaffed; Geirionydd's water runs up to 12 metres deep and cold, and its mobile signal is poor, so plan ahead rather than relying on your phone once you're there.
Seen from Crimpiau, above: the lake within its wider forested valley.
Two lakes, seven scenes.
See the shape of the walk before you make it.
01 Arrive at Crafnant
The free NRW car park, a short walk from the water.
02 The accessible amble
The waymarked, wheelchair-suitable Afon Crafnant path.
03 Onto the connecting trail
Forest roads and narrowing footpath, waymarked toward Geirionydd.
04 Forest and mining ground
Tramway and mining remains, two fords, two forest barriers.
05 Arrive at Geirionydd
A car park sitting on the site's own former mine ground.
06 The lake and the monument
Open water below, the Taliesin Monument on the hillside above.
07 The return
Back the way the route came, or a standalone visit to either lake alone.
Seen along the way.
The visit before you make it.
A lakeside path at CrafnantLlyn Geirionydd’s open waterThe Taliesin MonumentMining remains near Llyn GeirionyddA Gwydir Forest track
The parts people remember
It looks like two peaceful lakes on the map. The trail between them tells a different story.
01
The car park that was once a mine
Geirionydd's car park sits on ground that was, not so long ago, a working mine's waste tip: the walk to the water starts on reclaimed industrial ground, not an untouched lakeside.
02
Two small fords and a 70cm gap
The connecting trail isn't a formality between two lakes: it's narrow footpath, mud, two small fords, and forest barriers barely wide enough to squeeze a rucksack through.
03
A monument to a poet who may be buried there
On the hillside above Geirionydd stands a stone monument to Taliesin, the earliest Welsh poet whose work survives; tradition holds he lived, and lies, on these shores, though it's legend rather than record.
04
The lake that allows what the others don't
Geirionydd permits what most Snowdonia lakes don't: swimming and non-motorised craft freely, and water-skiing by permit through a dedicated club.
05
Where the tramway used to run
Part of the lakeside road at Geirionydd follows the route of a former mine tramway; traces of it, and the remains of Klondyke Mill, are still visible along the north shore.
Two lakes, one demanding trail between them, and mining ground the whole way.
Gwydir Forest Archive
Ground with a working history.
Three field notes: a mine, a monument, and a forgotten hillside festival.
Two notes are documented history, corroborated by more than one source. The monument note is legend, and the page says so rather than presenting it as settled fact.
Field notes
Three entries. Open one to read the note.
Industrial heritage Two sources agree
Ground shaped by mining
Field note I · filed under industrial heritage
Long before it was a walking destination, Gwydir Forest was a working lead-and-zinc landscape, and Geirionydd sits right in the middle of it.
What is known
Lead and zinc mining shaped Gwydir Forest chiefly between 1850 and 1919, with named workings including the Pandora mine above Llyn Geirionydd. Ore from Pandora was processed at Klondyke Mill downstream, and Natural Resources Wales confirms the Geirionydd car park itself sits on a former lead-mine waste tip.
What to notice there
A former tramway ran partly along the route of the lakeside road; traces of it, and the remains of Klondyke Mill, are still visible along the lake's north shore.
Sourcing
Corroborated by two independent secondary sources (Wikipedia and an established Snowdonia walking guide), plus Natural Resources Wales's own statement about the car park's ground.
Legend & literature Folklore
A monument to a poet
Field note II · filed under legend, told as legend
On the hillside above Geirionydd stands a stone monument to Taliesin; tradition, not record, ties him to this lake.
What is known
A stone monument above Llyn Geirionydd, erected in 1850 by Lord Willoughby d'Eresby of Gwydir Castle and restored in 1994 after lightning damage, commemorates Taliesin, the 6th-century bard whose work is the earliest surviving Welsh poetry.
What is legend
Taliesin is reputed, by tradition rather than record, to have lived — and to be buried — on the lake's shores. This rests on tradition, traced in secondary sources, not on an archaeological or documentary record.
What to notice there
The monument sits above the lake on a short climb from the car park: a real, physical marker to a legend, not a claim the page treats as settled fact.
Cultural history Single source
A festival on the hillside
Field note III · filed under the Taliesin site's later history
Decades after the monument went up, the same hillside hosted its own literary gatherings.
What is reported
The poet Gwilym Cowlyd held annual Eisteddfod-style cultural festivals at the Geirionydd site between 1863 and 1927.
What isn’t confirmed
This rests on a single directly-checked secondary source this session, not yet cross-checked against an independent record.
What to notice there
Over sixty years of gatherings on the same small hillside as the Taliesin Monument: a second layer of literary history on top of the legend.
Don’t let the day end at one pin.
Three real stops that turn this into a wider Conwy Valley day.
