This weekend I headed up to Snowdonia for a long weekend of scrambling and mountaineering with the Expedition Society from my university. As we headed up the forecast was not looking good at all but we all remained positive and the weather was better than initially forecast though we did have to alter our routes slightly due to the weather.
On Saturday we scrambled up the north ridge of Tryfan which is a fantastic scramble though unfortunately when we went up we were in hill fog and rain which remained until we had left the summit but as we were walking up to the Glyders after Tryfan it cleared beautifully and we were treated to fantastic views and sun. This improved weather stayed all evening which enabled us to have a BBQ to end a great day.
On Sunday our plan was to do the Snowdon Horseshoe which is one of the classic routes in Snowdonia which includes Crib Goch which is a fantastic knife edge ridge. As it was a bank holiday weekend we headed to the car park for 7:30 to ensure we got a space as it fills up early and then preceded to cook a fry up for the 12 people in our group at the back of the minibus! Unfortunately by lunch time the weather still had not cleared for the horseshoe so we had a change of plan and headed up Snowdon via the Pyg Track and tried to do it as quickly as possible. We managed to get to the top in 1hour47mins which was a good time, as at the summit it was still cloudy we went into the cafe at the top for 1h30 to warm up and wait for it to clear and luckily it did clear for around 30 mins which enabled us to have some fantastic views. On the way down we headed down via the miners track and on the way down we stopped by Glaslyn and ended up going for a quick and very cold swim in it!
On Monday we headed back via southern Snowdonia and climbed Cadair Idris and bar the summit we had great weather including lots of sun which was a nice change from the rest of the weekend. I was amazed at the difference of scenery in southern Snowdonia compared to the north where we had been for the rest of the weekend. We headed up the Fox’s path which is the most direct way up the mountain and involves a 310m climb up a cliff-scree face which was slightly challenging and then we headed back down the much more gentle Pony Path.
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