Beginner Wild Camping in Snowdonia

There’s nothing here at Cynllwyd Bach except for a breath of wind, the glinting of the moon on the lake and silhouettes of magnificient hills and mountain ridges amongst the stars and for the first time this year we’re falling asleep amongst it all. It’s the perfect site for wild camping in Snowdonia if you’re new to it.

The beauty of social media, blogs and vlogs is that we now find new places to explore so much easier. The only problem is there are so many different sources and so much info. I guess thats one of the reasons we started writing and vlogging on here, to try and collate all the amazing places and experiences into one little corner of the internet.

One such place we found whilst digging through Facebook was Cynllwyd Bach, a semi-wild camping spot on the shores of Llyn Crafnant, North Wales. We’ve been gradually lured into wild camping over the past few years. We’ve never really been ones for big campsites with tons of facilities, our favourite sites are ones where we have unallocated space, pitch where you like in a big field. (We visit Shell Island en masse with loads of pals every year) The next step we want to try is full on wild camping but it requires a little extra gear (actually less and lighter gear) so Cynllwyd Bach appeared to tick the right boxes. We could still “wild camp” without the facilities but were able to drive our usual heavier camping gear to the site too.

Cynllwyd Bach is two small spaces of land either side of the road that goes around the stunning Llyn Crafnant. The upper patch has room for roughly 3 medium size family tents whilst the lower / lakeside has room for 2. We pitched lakeside, it’s exactly the type of pitch we’ve been clambering for, literally a stones throw from the lake. The ground is a little uneven and bumpy in places but pitching the tent for the first time this year felt flippin’ amazing.

Psstt: I’ve just finished writing a piece on my favourite wild camping stove and why it’s the best too.

There is a small portaloo based on the upper site but people are encouraged to wee in the bushes. Campers are requested to clean the toilet out at the end of the stay. We had no experience of dealing with a portaloo, so we just stuck to the outside for everything. We had Jasper with us so plenty of doggy bags handy 😉 Theres a drinking water tap on the upper field and you theres two outdoor plugs if you really need them.

We only booked a night here for my birthday amongst a week of commercial work so this was just the perfect setting to relax and escape. The edges of the lake are shallow and a few yards down from where we pitched is a small beach where the kids chucked and skimmed stones for literally hours and hours. Finn is older this year (well duh!) and him and Erin are really getting closer and more capable of really playing together. Its definitely one of those heartwarming parent moments seeing them surrounded by epic hills and mountains, chatting and playing together (with the occasional bickering of course ;))

Edit: I wrote this a few years back and just went back to visit the Facebook page and it’s down. It was up early in the year so I assume it’s down because of Covid-19. Bookmark this page and keep checking back if you’re looking to visit there. If I hear from the site owners I’ll ping a message on my Twitter or Instagram.

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