Holidays > 2001 > 19 - 21 October: Climbing Snowdon

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I went to Snowdonia with four colleagues (Damian, David, Dominic and Phil) on Friday at 15:30. We arrived at 20:30, which due to an accident on the M42 M5 link, took two hours longer than it should have. Damian and Phil travelled left half an hour earlier on a longer route and arrived in Llanberis ten minutes before us.

We couldn't find the B&B, but spotted them entering a Balti restaurant. Can you believe it, we travelled 135 miles from Birmingham (Balti capital of the World) to Llanberis, only to have a Balti for supper. It was good though. We were propelled up the mountain the next day!

We parked in Pen y Pass car park at 09:50 the Saturday morning, which was almost full, with two bus loads of students from Warwick University and countless others presumably on trail finding courses. We set out on the Pyg Track, which means Pitch Track, due to its former use for carrying Pitch up to the Copper mines. It is a good thing I bought the leaflet after the walk, as it said it is one of the hardest trails up Snowdon.

The weather was suprisingly good, with half an hour of rain to begin with, followed by intermitent low lying cloud. The views were spectacular until we arrived at the summit, which was shrouded in cloud, which reduced visibility to a couple of metres, so we couldn't see the alleged view of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Lake District.

While eating our packed lunches, a sheep took a bite of Dom's apple. He picked the apple up and held it out to the sheep, which took bites from it and finally reared up on its hind legs and tried to push him away. It then picked up the remainder of the dropped apple, smelled around for another one and walked off in disgust into the mist.

We sat in the cafe and had a hot drink for a quarter of an hour before setting off again. I bought a badge which read, "I climbed Snowdon the hard way", which was confirmed by the leaflet which I bought later. Damian and Phil went back to Llangellis by following the trail along the railway track and Dom, Dave and I went back via he Miners' Track, which was a bit nervewracking for the first half hour while scrambling down the scree covered slope, but the following hour and a half was a gentle walk along three lakes, the remains of mine barracks and the ever present magnificent mountains. The sun even made an appearance and stayed for three quarters of the return journey.

I took plenty of photographs, but unfortunately had the camera set to 400 on a film which turned out to be 200. Hopefully they will come out okay, but I have a feeling they will be underexposed.

We stopped at Criccieth beach and skimmed pebbles on the sea, then visited the Centre of Alternative Technology at Mcynlleth on the Sunday, which was really interesting. We had some tasty organic vegetarian food at the restaurant. The flavour must have been enhanced by the fact the "donations" made to the toilets are turned into compost. We climed some stairs up the side of the hill to what we thought was the Wind Turbine, but we should have read the map better, as it actually the Wind Turbine VIEWPOINT. It is a bit pointless, as the view isn't any better than from the main village. It stretched our acheing legs from the climb up Snowdon the day before though. I could have spent longer reading things in more detail, but we had to head off so as to be able to drive back in daylight.

We left the centre at 16:00 and arrived back at 19:10. The weather was fine until it started to rain just as we passed the sign which read, "Welcome to England", which was ironic considering it is usually wetter in Wales.

We all thoroughly enjoyed it and at least now I can say I have climbed the highest mountain in England and Wales. Woohoo!