Snowdon

Monday 1st May 2006

This was one of those bizarre days that I seem to get a lot where the weather starts abysmally so I abandoned my planned walk for a shorter, simpler one that is finished by lunch time only for the clouds to lift, the rain stopped and the sun came out to reveal a gorgeous afternoon. Such was this walk. Another factor that acted against me was that I didn’t have all day. I had a train to catch at six in Bangor, hence a bus leaving Llanberis before five o’clock. I had a deadline so I couldn’t wait around for the clouds to lift. My original plan was to repeat the previous May Day and go over Crib Goch to complete my tally of 3000 footers, however since I had already missed out Tryfan the day before I was never going to be able to do that! With low cloud and rain once again, and this time also with strong winds, I didn’t feel like repeating my endeavour of the the year before. Crib Goch terrified me then and I had been looking forward to going across in clear weather this time, but that wasn’t to be. Even if I did go over (and survived!) I would still have to come back in order to do it in clear weather. My sentiment was similar to the year before when I abandoned Y Llewedd in favour of doing it in better weather, which I did four weeks later. Crib Goch will still be there when I come back. Back to this walk and despite the bad weather there are no excuses for not going up Snowdon. Walking along the Pyg Track I passed the Crib Goch turning and continued along the path across its southern slopes. I had only once been on the Pyg Track, in descent, three years before, and I had forgotten how good is the path. The early stages don’t appear particularly well-constructed but the later stages have perhaps been over-manufactured, though despite all this the actual line is superb. It gains height to Bwlch y Moch and from there follows a level course below Crib Goch until it reaches the foot of Snowdon where it climbs steeply up to the col with Garnedd Ugain. The final climb beside the railway line is a bit of a let down and on this walk it was bitterly cold with a powerful wind chill, but that was all forgotten when I reached the summit, because it was empty! No one else was there, on a Bank Holiday Monday! All right the weather was poor and it was before eleven o’clock but it was still a wonderful feeling being on the normally crowded summit all on my own.

When I was eventually tired of the non-existent views (!) I returned to the col and descended the zigzags turning right at the marker stone onto the lower path downhill. Descending steeply I arrived beside the lake, Glaslyn, and the start of the miner’s track, which I had never been on before, and what a path it is. All the work had been done descending to Glaslyn and now I had a gentle stroll walking past three lakes descending only very gently and most of that was on the earliest part. From the reservoir the path could be taken as an easy Saturday afternoon stroll with the gradient being very gentle and with only gravel under foot. It’s a very nice path, just not a mountain path. Returning to Pen-y-Pass I caught a bus to Llanberis and of course by this time the sun had come out and it was a gorgeous afternoon. C’est la vie.