A Stunning Weekend in Snowdonia

I have just got back from what was quite frankly an unbelievable weekend in Snowdonia. It was an odd trip as there was supposed to be 17 of us heading up but the minibus broke down en route and didn’t make it so it was just my car of 5 people.

On the first day we did the standard ascent of Tryfan, albeit with a few hard section that I added in for myself as always! It was great though as there was no hill fog and for most of the time it was dry so for the first time in 5 visits I could actually see the mountain I climbed and had great views from the top without being blown off! After we had done this we headed back to the campsite to endure another night of heavy rain, but that’s fine as its going to rain at some point over the weekend so its better that its overnight!

On the Sunday morning we headed up to Pen-Y-Pass car park to do Crib Goch, our plan was to just do Crib Goch and head down. We got to the car park really early to make sure we didn’t miss out on a parking spot but as it wasn’t meant to clear until late morning we cooked a fry up in the car park! As we headed out the car park Crib Goch was still in cloud but as we were climbing up to the start of the ridge it cleared. Getting to the start of the ridge and seeing the knife edge route you are going to walk along all the way up to the top of Snowdon is a truly spectacular site. This was made even better by the sun coming out for the majority of the time and there being almost no wind so it was really enjoyable to be on the ridge.

We took our time on the ridge as there were a few people who were new to scrambling with us and we were planning on going down the quick and easy way from the top of Snowdon, but while we were at the summit some people there that were raising money for an expedition to Alaska suggested that we carried on with the horseshoe, and after a quick group discussion we decided we would kick ourselves if we didn’t! Due to it starting to get late we made a quick move off the top and towards the final ridge up to Y Lliwedd and by this time the weather had completely cleared and there was not a cloud in the sky and with the sun starting to get low the light was just beautiful.

As we were descending off the other side of Y Lliwedd to complete the horseshoe the sun set and it was beautiful seeing this in the mountains, a sight I have never seen before (seen many sunrises in the mountains though). Using head torches we made it to the miners track but by the time we got there all the stars were out in the crystal clear sky so using starlight we headed back to the car down the miners path, with a few stops to admire the stars, I even lay down on the track for a while watching them.

We got back to the car at 8:30 making it a ten hour mountain day of which I enjoyed every second, while walking down the miners path I was thinking about mountain days out that could beat this day and came to the conclusion that this was my best every mountain day out in the UK and was only beaten by a handful of routes in the alps!