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  • Why Cader Idris Is the Guardian’s Winning Winter Adventure — A Mountain Celebrated Through History and Art in a New Graffeg Book

    While hiking isn’t always considered a winter activity, Andrew Green, author of Graffeg’s upcoming title ‘Cader Idris and the Artists’ certainly thinks it should be. Putting forward his convincing argument in the Guardian article ‘You can’t beat a wintery walk on a crisp, bright day’: readers’ favourite UK winter activities’, Green writes:

     

    First, pick a dry, clear, cold day and ensure you wear good boots and warm clothes, have told people where you’ll be, and know what the weather forecast holds. Now you’re ready for a rewarding day: a circular, five-hour walk to the summit of Wales’s finest mountain, Cader Idris starting from the Eryri national park’s Dôl Idris car park. Up steep steps through woods to Llyn Cau, a wonderful corrie; next, a tough ascent of Craig Cau and Cader Idris’s summit Penygader (fall asleep there, and wake up mad or a poet, according to legend); then back along Mynydd Moel, where Richard Wilson made one of the first (18th century) and finest mountain portraits in British art. Unforgettable!


  • The subject of this winning tip can be explored further in Cader Idris and the Artists, where Green discusses artists such as Richard Wilson, J.M.W.Turner, John Sell Cotman, John Varley, Kyffin Williams, Bedwyr Williams and more and how they have depicted the mountain artistically throughout history. Cader Idris, one of the tallest mountains in Eryri (Snowdownia) in Wales, is a mountain rich in mythological and historical associations. In Green’s latest book, we learn that it has also long held a strong attraction to visual artists. Green proves that the mountain continues to be as awe-inspiring and enticing as it was back in the 1760s.


  • Beating out worthy ideas such as rowing the canals of Bristol, rock pooling in Somerset, cycling in Northumberland and a charity walk in Derry, amongst others, Green persuades us of the magic of the
    mountain at any time of year, but especially in the winter, when the views are even more striking and the experience is even more rewarding.

    You can read the full article here
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