Yr Wyddfa, Crib-y-Ddysgi and a night in a tent

A weekend in Snowdonia

Mount Snowdon and its surrounds has managed to avoid me up until this bank holiday weekend. It seems to have never crossed my radar, maybe because of its massively remote nature or maybe because I would normally head to the Lake District, but I can finally say that I have set foot on its infamous slopes.

The idea of climbing Yr Wyddfa (Mount Snowdon in English) was thought up a couple of months ago and with a bank holiday in the offing, plans were afoot to finally get up there and get yomping to the highest point in England and Wales.

Of course, a climbing partner was essential for when I needed someone to rescue me when I was hideously lost or for helping me up when I inevitably fell over. Thankfully, the amazing Catherine was on hand to keep me in check and an eventful and adventurous weekend was waiting for us.

 

Planning

Initially, after planning an early start, it looked like we were going to head up Snowdon on one of the more boring tourist trails. Luckily the lecturer/ leader of the mountainbike leadership course I did a couple of weekends ago had the perfect route for Snowdon away from the tourist tracks which is what we headed for. We were to park near Blaen-y-Nant, climb up Cwm Glas Mawr to Llyn Bach before joining the Llanberis path alongside the Snowdon Mountain Railway to the summit, perfect!

 

An early start to the summit 

5:15am the alarm went off and the car was on the M5 heading north before 6:10. Snowdon and its surrounding summits was within view by 10 and the quest began to find a parking space near where our hike began. Of course, with it being nice weather and it being a bank holiday, parking was at a premium but 45 minutes later, and with the car half parked on the road, we were off .

View from lower slopes of Cwm Glas Mawr

The lower slopes of Cwm Glas Mawr were steep and before I knew it my heartbeat was thudding behind my eyes and Catherine was setting a pace that most would have failed to stay with. The benefit of this was we gained height very quickly and within no time we were several 100 metres higher than where we started; this was where we had our first real impression of just how fantastic Snowdonia is. It’s a place like no other with soaring peaks and cliffs, with minuscule rock climbers clinging to almost impossible routes hundreds of metres above solid ground.

Having taken it all in we cracked on up our route, which couldn’t have been walked up for a very long time, if ever! Ideally we would have been tied together at this point as it was a long way down and one slip could have been disastrous; it was pretty cool though and an experience that, as will soon become clear, would seem comparitively easy!

During this moment of great peril I looked down and found a key, how long it had been there I don’t know but it was severely weathered and about half the thickness to a normal one, maybe this was the key to the mountain.. It’s on my car keys now anyway!

Lunch stop

On up we climbed to have lunch on the cliff next to Llyn Glas, a very small lake that was so clear you could see the bottom of it in the middle. This was definitely one of the most atmospheric lunches of my life so far with rock climbers voices echoing across the valley and with the sea off in the far distance, what could be more perfect?

With the legs starting to ache we began the massively steep ascent of Cwm Glas up to the tourist Llanberis track. The rocks on this ascent were covered in a thick green slime that made them slippery and unpredictable, especially when carrying a map in one hand, it was very much two steps forward one step back but it was good fun. The summit of this steep scree climb gave us the most amazing view across the Irish sea and out to the Isle of Man and beyond; by far one of the best views I’ve seen, it was well worth the burning calves and the constant risk of slipping!

Snowdon Summit

During our climb to this point we had seen 4 people, but now there was literally hundreds! The majority wearing either Van’s or Nike’s on their feet and taking masses of selfies in the vain hope of an extra like on Instagram; each to their own though! We raced off up the final part to reach the summit. The highest point in England and Wales, first climbed in 1639 by Thomas Johnson, a botanist from Yorkshire, and used by Sir Edmund Hilary in 1953 in preparation for his climb of Everest; we were very much standing on a piece of history at 1085 metres, woo!

 

Crib-y-Ddysgi and Crib Goch

Having had a successful climb we were hungry for more so descended a short way before climbing up to Crib-y-Ddysgi at 1065 metres where, thankfully, we were away from the now ant like tourists slowly making their way to the summit. This peak gives way to one of the most dangerous sections of trail in the whole of the Snowdonia National Park, Crib Goch.

The start of Crib Goch

The start of the Crib is very manageable with steep slopes either side and small and fairly easy rock climbs both up and down that gave you a short burst of adrenaline with each success. Onwards we went until it got to the point where if you met someone you had little choice but to go back to a safe space and let them pass. The cliffs to our left and right were around 300 metres straight down with little to stop you until the valley floor below you. The word ‘exposed’ was made for explaining this landscape, as the only thing between you and certain death was the meter of rock you were standing on; it was absolutely amazing and gave my mind a clarity of which I have not before experienced. 3/4 of the way along the Crib it starts to get ridiculous and I wished I had my harness on as we were climbing and descending rock faces that demanded respect and precision, an error here and it was game over. Based on this we retreated 30 metres and descended down an impossibly steep scree slope to the valley floor and the PYG track, never before have I been so happy to get to a tourist track; a return to the Crib will have to be done but this time with a harness, climbing shoes and rope!

 

To the car

After a couple of kilometres on the PYG we could see the Llnaberis pass where our car was parked so we dived off the path back onto more rough terrain. Not 20 metres off the path Catherine found a £20 note, that was lunch sorted for the next day, couldn’t complain!

After more descending/ slipping/ falling (mostly from me) we got to the valley floor where a short walk along the road brought us back to our crookedly parked car, what an adventure!

 

Camping

When we first thought up this weekend a night wild camping was very much a part of the plan so we headed over to Llyn Ogwen and headed up Glydr Fach, a mountain towering above us at 994 metres.

We climbed up to about 300 metres and found the perfect flat space below a massively impressive cliff overlooking the valley that would eventually head down to the sea. With the tent pitched in record time cider and tea was had and, with darkness hitting us by 9:30, we got our heads down. My legs were not too happy at this point and with the added tiredness of a day of travel, sleep was easy to come by until midnight.

I was first aware that something wasn’t right when I woke and it was eerily quiet, you could have, quite literally, heard a pin drop, something wasn’t right. Without warning there was an almighty flash of lightning followed by the loudest thunder I have ever heard, I jumped so far I nearly hit my head on the roof of the tent. Whilst we weren’t particularly high we were definitely exposed enough to cause concern but my tent was waterproof, what could go wrong?

At about 1 o’clock the tent started leaking, right onto my sleeping bag so we ended up huddled in the corner of the tent listening to rain that sounded more like someone emptying buckets of water on us! The lightning had since got worse with the brightness temporarily blinding us every 30 seconds, it was so powerful our phones would stop charging every time the lightning hit, whilst the thunder was making the mountain beneath us shake. Lying on your back, staring at a lightning storm, in a tent with metal poles was in all truth terrifying.  This was adventure at its finest, even if a sense of peril loomed large, I had a huge smile on my face.. or was it a grimace?

By 3am the storm had passed and we managed to get some sleep, eventually waking to an environment that was completely different. The streams around us had turned to rivers and the cloud on the mountains in front gave the impression that the mountains were angry with us for camping on them for the night, they sure had their revenge! With the most spectacular breakfast consumed we swiftly climbed up Glydr Fach to the cloud line where we sat and watched the cloud come rolling over the valley. 1 minute we could see the whole of the valley, the next we could only see 50 metres, it was truly stunning and a memory that will stay with my for a very long time.

 

Conclusion

We went to Snowdonia in the search for adventure and we sure had found it, crossing the line between adventure and the pure thrill of cheating inevitable injury or worse. It was a fantastic weekend, in the words of Sir Ranulph Fiennes “I am doing this for many reasons, some of which I don’t fully understand. That there is an inner urge is undeniable.”, and that in essence was our Snowdonia weekend.