Pen yr Ole Wen

About Pen yr Ole Wen

Pen yr Ole Wen is the most southerly summit of the Carneddau and the seventh highest mountain in Wales. Seen from the A5 near Idwal Cottage youth hostel, to its south, it presents a pyramidal profile.

The direct line up the south-west corner from the hostel gains 675 m in about 1.5 km, an average gradient close to 1 in 2. A gentler alternative starts from Tal-y-Llyn Ogwen, roughly a mile north-east, follows the stream towards the outflow of Ffynnon Lloer and branches left onto the ridge. Many walkers take the summit as part of a longer Carneddau round.

The name was for years rendered "Head of the White Light", which nobody could satisfactorily explain. In 2004 Professor Hywel Wyn Owen of the Place-Name Research Centre at Bangor University showed that Ole derives from Goleddf, meaning slope or hillside, giving "Head of the White Slope".

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Pen yr Ole Wen (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.

Access rights here

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

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Sunset

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Daylight

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Civil twilight ends

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Computed astronomically for 53.138, -4.011. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is ground 5m N of cairn. On broad or flat summits the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Abney level

Record revised

05-Jan-20

Drop measured from

SH654622 · 933 m

Classification history: Added to Trail 100 list Jan 2020.

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

Long-distance paths past this hill

2 waymarked long-distance routes run within 2.5 km of the summit — useful if you are linking this hill into a longer walk, or want a made path for the approach.

Route lines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); distance from the summit computed by OpenFell.

Which hill this one belongs to

Pen yr Ole Wen 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, 933 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