Pen yr Helgi Du
One classification here — Simm — belongs to a list OpenFell holds only part of, so it has no list page. See how far the coverage goes.
- Height
- 832.6 m · 2,732 ft
- Prominence
- 84.7 m
- Grid reference
- SH 69782 63049
- Coordinates
- 53.14860, -3.94860
- County / area
- Conwy
- Region
- Snowdonia
- OS Landranger
- 115
- OS Explorer
- OL17E
- Summit feature
- scattered cairn on W edge of summit
- Key col
- SH 6943 6334 (747.8 m)
About Pen yr Helgi Du
Pen yr Helgi Du — Welsh for the head or hill of the black hound — is a peak in the eastern Carneddau, on the south-eastern flanks of Carnedd Llewelyn.
The link to Carnedd Llewelyn runs over Bwlch Eryl Farchog, a knife-edge ridge above the cliffs of Craig yr Ysfa. Cwm Eigiau lies east, the Ffynnon Llugwy reservoir south, and further east again is Pen Llithrig y Wrach, the slippery peak of the witch.
Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Pen yr Helgi Du (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.
Access rights here
Conditional Right to roam: Right to roam only on mapped CRoW open access land.
Permission needed Wild camping: Permission needed everywhere.
General position for Wales — local byelaws, seasonal restrictions and closures can override it. Full details: access rights in Wales · check another location.
Daylight at this summit today
- Sunrise
- —
- Sunset
- —
- Daylight
- —
- Civil twilight ends
- —
Computed astronomically for 53.149, -3.949. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.
Summit weather live
Loading forecast for the summit (833 m)…
Forecast adjusted to summit altitude. Weather data from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0).
Finding the summit
ground 5m SE of cairn is as high; ground 25m SE at SH 69792 63025 is 0.3m lower.
The recorded summit point is scattered cairn on W edge of summit. That distinction matters on broad or flat tops, where the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.
- Survey method
- Abney level/Trimble GeoXH 6000
- Record revised
- 12-Sep-15
- Drop measured from
- SH 6943 6334 · 747.8 m
Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.
Which hill this one belongs to
Pen yr Helgi Du is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Carnedd Llewelyn (1,064 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 748 m.
Grouping is by prominence alone: a summit belongs to the nearest higher Marilyn it connects to without a deeper intervening col. Over a large massif that can gather hills no one would walk in a single day, and which few would describe as parts of the same mountain — it is a measure of independence, not a suggested route.
Nearest listed peaks
| Peak | Height | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Carnedd Llewelyn | 1064 m | 1.9 km |
| Pen Llithrig y Wrach | 798.6 m | 2 km |
| Craig Eigiau | 735 m | 2.8 km |
| Foel Grach | 975.4 m | 3 km |
| Yr Elen | 962 m | 3.2 km |
| Carnedd Dafydd | 1044 m | 3.5 km |