Snowdon, or Yr Wyddfa as it's known in Welsh, is the highest mountain in Wales (1,085m) and the second highest in the UK. It forms part of the Three Peaks challenge (hiking up Snowdon, Scafell Pike in England, and Ben Nevis in Scotland) and sits within the Snowdonia National Park, which covers a large part of North Western Wales.
I went to Snowdonia with my parents; my Dad always wanted to climb Snowdon, but my Mum was not interested so I agreed to climb the mountain with him. I caught a train from London to Shrewsbury, where they picked me up on the way up from Devon. We were staying in a little cottage in Llanberis, one of the towns close to the walking paths up to the mountains.
We got settled, had an early dinner, then an early night - we were getting up at 6am the next day for our walk!
We woke up and got ready - it was a beautiful clear day, not too warm or cold, so layers were the way to go! We drove to the carpark nearby, then got organised to start walking - it was a bit past 7am.
We had chosen to walk up the Pyg Track, then down the Miners' Track. After doing them, I'm glad we did them in this order, as the Pyg Track was definitely more interesting. The first part of the walk was quite easy and very picturesque! The glacial valley where the road drives down looked incredible from up high.
At this point, we couldn't even see Snowdon, which was a little disconcerting when you've set off to climb it. But as we got to the top of that track, veered off to the right, then over a stile, the whole of the mountain range came into view. Including some beautiful lakes, wayyyyyy down below! Yes we stopped off to take photos, because it was absolutely gorgeous. We also stopped to remove clothes, as it was starting to get a bit warm on the ascent!
As we went up, we met a few people coming back down - we asked them how they were coming back down already, but some of them had gone up Snowdon to watch the sun rise. That's keen! Especially walking up these paths, there were some definite tricky sections. We got to one as we met a few people coming down, and had to grab onto the rocks for hand holds as we shuffled around a ledge. I wouldn't have wanted to do that in the dark.
At some point, we stopped and had a snack. It was quite tiring work, so it was important to keep the energy levels up so we could keep going. We had our first one somewhere about a third of the way up, and the second one as we were walking up the giant staircase that seemed to go on forever.
We finally made it to the top of all the stairs, only for there to be more stairs along the edge up. But we were almost there... as indicated by the mountain railway train that we saw coming up - those lazy buggers!
We finally made it all the way to the top. It was a bit chilly so I had to put my jacket back on, but we sat down at the edge with the other people who had made the effort and had our lunch. At 10:30 or so! But it was well needed - you could feel when your energy levels were dipping and, although the way down wasn't as draining, we still had to get back to the car!
Unfortunately, with the train getting to the top about the same time that we did, it meant that a whole heap of people that didn't climb their way up were hogging the stand at the top which indicated that you'd made it. Very frustrating!
After looking around for quite some time, as well as waiting as long as possible for those people above to move (they weren't moving... Not even to get the train back down when it left..), it was time to go back down. The walk up, when it started getting hard, was actually quite difficult. The walk down, however, was difficult in a whole other way - it hurt your knees something shocking! We were going down on the Miners' Track, which involved quite a bit of grappling and squeezing through rocks and boulders on the way down. We had to walk down a section of the stairs down, then swung off to the right and head straight down. We ended up walking past those lakes we'd seen from up high, which was a nice change!
It was quite an easy route down, and past several old stone buildings that were no longer in use. The problem with it being easier and being tired was that my mind was wandering and I kept tripping. Silly! But eventually we made it back to the car. The Miners' Track, while easier, was also quite boring compared to the Pyg Track. If I was to do it again, I'd choose another track down, obviously not Crib Goch though!
Once back to the car and back to the house it was time for a cup of tea. Goodness me, we deserved it! It was hard work for someone who had never really climbed mountains, but it was so good. We had the most spectacular weather too, couldn't have asked for better!
