Month: July 2015

Climb a mountain. That’s a good thing to do, right?

We had seen the weather forecast change from sun to rain to wind to wind and rain to wind and rain and sun to cloudy – the day turned out to be all of the above. We decided to get there early, so at 6:55 we were waiting for MaccyD’s to open, to get some calories in before the scramble. We had decent enough gear – good walking shoes (a must), shorts, napsack with provisions (and even a torch – just in case), and some wet gear and water. Although the mountain is accessible to most – people do seem to forget that it actually is a mountain (just), and some of the kit we saw people in during the day was incredible – and not in a good way..

Arriving at Pen-y-pass around 7:45, there was plenty of room in the car park (it was a Friday in Summer Holidays), but it does fill up quickly. The car parking is £10 which I see on the internet lots of people seem to moan about – but if you are walking you are paying £10 for a car full of people to spend 6-10 hrs in an incredible place – to me that is a bargain, and well worth it.

There are many routes up the mountain, from the train, and the Llanberis track (which I believe is just a sloping walk) to the Miners track to the Pyg track (on our side) – we had decided to run the Pyg then go over the notorious Crib Goch. I had researched the Crib extensively before we left, as it is not highlighted on Snowdon, due to its “extreme” nature, and it is NOT to be taken lightly. YouTube has some vid’s, and I saw every single one before leaving – each time coming away with sweaty palms, as I am not very good with heights – but the wife and daughter wanted to do it, and to be honest if you can, you should – as it is thrilling.

The walk begins at the car park at Pen-y-pass, in the top right hand corner, and begins with the Pyg track – this follows the hill up, and it mostly stone steps dropped into the ground to follow – there are a couple of slightly steep bits, but it very easy to follow. As we ascended we could see the ridge of Crib Goch in the distance (although at the time I didn’t realise as it looked too steep to climb) – we saw a man running down the hill, and we thought he must have been up the top early and was one of these extreme runners – but no, he had left his parking ticket in his rucksack and needed to get back down to put it in the car! – Remember kids – parking ticket in the rucksack is bad…

After only about half a mile up hill we came to the style, I had heard that the Crib Goch path is a divergence from the main path just before this, but not seeing any signs we continued on over the style, before realising around a quarter of a mile later that we had missed it. I was reluctant to go up, as I don’t like the heights and it was drizzly at this time, but the others insisted – so I gave them the last chance and we turned around and went back to the style. We looked up at the cliff face and I wasn’t sure that could be it, but we saw a couple of people in the distance and took a chance.

The path is just before the style on the right, where there is a break in the fence – after a little way it comes to another style which has some little red warning signs on it – do not continue if you think you wont like like, because not long after this it becomes difficult to come back down again…

The first bit is easy, but it soon becomes a bit of a scramble up some reasonably steep sections, but there is a path of sorts to follow, I seem to remember it was slightly to the left – luckily we were following some others so they “seemed” to know what they were doing. It was at this point, perhaps a quarter of the way up that I started to tremble, the other two were having a great time, but I could begin to feel my heart racing and the shakes beginning. At a point a little further up, you have to actually climb – which means finding hand holds and physically pull yourself up and over – now I was finding that my arms were not really pulling me enough and I started using my knees – a “bad move”.

As it got steeper, I had that over whelming sensation that one slip and you could really be in trouble – at this point you may not fall far, but it would be enough to break something – hopefully not your head, I was tensing too much and beginning to struggle. The other two were loving it, and they did kindly give me some encouraging words “are you okay, well done” to which I just couldn’t respond. After this initial bit it flattens out and I shook a little and was breathing hard – I was scared, and only half way up..

Next section was even more of a climb, there is no path here, just rock and loose stuff, and you just have to go up, at one point I did think that this was it, and I couldn’t get any further, but at this point it would be more difficult to go back down, so up we went. There is a small “technical” bit here, where you have to climb again, it was for me a little challenging, and I kept thinking, why the heck did I do this, I am going to get stuck or die – I did think it would be a little embarrassing to die on a grade one scramble, so up I went. The next section was a little slippery, with the rain, and some grass on the rocks – you are reasonably “safe”, but I couldn’t look down, at this point one slip would mean certain injury, or worse – and although it is relatively easy, so is tripping in the street. Again, as there is no path, you look up and just hope you are going the right way, I was pulling myself up, with my whole body pressed against the face, not the idea climbing position I don’t think.

Looking up, we still seemed to have a very long way to go, but at this point the rocks make something like a natural staircase, and it is technically easy to ascend to the top, but if you hate heights, you still cling on with grim death and keep going and going. At this point I was overtaken by a guy who was almost running up the side, he looked like he had done it before, and looked at me with pity as I clung on as he gamboled past me – not far now I thought, and eventually we got to the top.

It was now quite wet, and the rock looked dangerous – the wind had also picked up a bit, and although I had read the stories, I was surprised at the lack of room at the top, I sat, and just managed to take a photo and get some breath and a drink before the real challenge started.. The ridge itself is, well a ridge, on one side (the right) is pretty much a sheer drop, the other is just a very steep scree – make no mistake, if you fell either side it was be unpleasant. The first bit I managed standing on the ridge line – that didn’t last long, and I took the easier route, which is very slightly to the left, holding the ridge with your hands. I felt very exposed, and worried, at one point I had to mount the ridge like a horseman (feeling like it was the apocalypse) and another I had to crawl, but head first. Mostly though you can navigate the edge reasonably okay, there are some places where it seems like you cannot find a foothold, and you are constantly aware of the height and “danger”.

It went on and on and on, but after a while we got to the pinnacles – you can go over them – no chance, but there is a good path around them, but you have to climb a little bit – then you come to the last pinnacle – which you have to climb, on the right hand side, with a drop, and its relatively easy – but due to the height I just went straight up, no thinking, even when our daughter went slightly the wrong way, there was no way I could pause, I was up. On the other side is a steep down, which was almost as scary, then onto a proper path. I gasped for air and shook for some time – it was like the adrenaline has been spent and I relaxed – I shouldn’t have.

On the other side of the first ridge, is a bit of a path, which then ascends to a second ridge – just a little one, which I even managed to walk across in parts, after this is another path, which splits – one way is up the other around, we had some real climbers behind us, and they said to go up, so I have no idea where the other path goes, but we followed them. After you get to the top of this bit, there is a very steep cliff face – you have to go up it. This is real climbing, and none of the reviews I read mentioned this, although again it is not difficult, it is hard for someone who is not a mountaineer and you are very exposed as you climb at 90 degrees, at one point it felt like over 90. I don’t know what the best route is here, but after scrambling and climbing on my knees we were heading up again. This bit was similar to the bit before you ge to the top at the beginning, but not quite so steep – the rock looks a little more like slate, and there are good handholds but yet again I felt very exposed, after this it is another small ridge like and eventually, after what feels like a week you are finally at the top – thank god for that.

We looked back and I was amazed we had got across it, after having all that panic inside you the feeling of getting across is amazing. I realise it is not hard in the scale of things, but for me, quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. If you don’t like things like “Go Ape”, then you really have to consider whether you should attempt this or not – it is absolutely worth it, it is dangerous (in a loose sense of the word) and you could fall, if you did you would be in trouble, but many people do it, and very few die.

Once at the top, you decent slightly to the Llanberis track, and chug up with the rest of them to the top – we had a beer in the cafe, just to say that we had a beer at the highest “pub” in the UK, then after a little breather we set off back.

The return route was the miners track, which starts next to the marker a little way back down the Llanberis track from the summit and is a little tricky in places – not hard in any way, but does require some scrambling up – its not just steps. A little way down this path, there is another little “finger stone” and you go right here (not well marked, and it is difficult to see the route at the start) onto the miners track proper. This is then a bit of a decent and a mile or so of flatish walking. It is a lot longer going this way, rather than continuing on the path across the Pyg – and although the old stone houses are interesting to see, if you want to get back the Pyg may be better.

So according to Strava it was around 9 miles in total and took us about six hours ( Snowdon strava route ).

It was great – well worth attempting, would I do it again? Not on your nelly.

The rain was quite heavy now, so we went back to the hotel, had a relaxing shower, and out to the pub and the Begal Spice for a top Indian.

Snowdon – conquered.

So we were off on a short, four day holiday – to do a little of North Wales, Snowdon, then a couple of days in Liverpool.

Started earlyish on the Thurs, just after “rush hour”, and the going was painful. Travelling up through Abergavenny is never the easiest – but there were a lot of of slow movers, and we had forgotton the Royal Welsh was on in Builth, so that slowed us to. Our TomTom also seems to have gone mental, and she took us down some wild and wonderful roads, when staying on the main would have been better – but after many hours we made it to Portmierion.

This is a place, which was built some time back by a guy who wanted to see if he could build a nice village – with Mediterranean influences in North Wales – well, he succeeded.

It is now just holiday homes, and hotel rooms – but of course there are one or two tourists wandering around, its about a tenner a head, and there was free parking on site – we came and wandered. Although the day was not great, the sun was sort of out, and the wind was windy, we mooched around the coast line, then had a wee dram in the hotel. UP the hill to the “cafe” we had some reasonably decent grub at a reasonably decent price, and Kate had an ice cream which was again pretty reasonable. Its good to see places which dont charge too much. We went to catch the land train, but it was packed, so we spent the next half hour having a look at the square and buying some prints. Went back and missed the train again! It seems people were queuing for the next train, as the one was leaving – so we gave up and walked it instead – which was nice.

It wasn’t far to walk, and the run was good, we did the circuit and then had seen all there was to see – so we headed out. It is a shame that “villages” like this cannot be built normally – but I guess without the tourist dollar they would be too expensive to maintain – but on the face of it there doesn’t seem to be any reason why something like this couldn’t be a normal place..

Up the road to Caernarfon, and after some faffing with the car park, we checked in. Room was reasonable, but we unpacked and chilled for a short while, then off to see a little bit of the town. As time was getting on we walked thought and went to the Castell which was a very weird place, it has such a selection of punters, from young families to alcoholics – slightly scary in places, some dudes arrived and were drinking things like a WKD with a Carlsburg top – and seemingly quite abusive, but we found a decent table and had a couple.

Next stop was the Black Boy Inn, which seems to have the best reputation in town. They don’t take bookings after 6, so we get a buzzer thing, and go and have a drink in the bar, then when a table is free they buzz you and you go into the restaurant. This works well, and we manage to find a nice little table to wait. After about half hour we were shown through – great starters and main course – not perfect but very good all the same. After nosh it was time to head back and check the weather for he 50th time to see what would await us on Snowdon.

Popped down to Pembrokeshire again, this weekend. Nice one day, thunder the next.

Although no rain on Sat, it still wasn’t quite nice enough to sit out and beer. So sat in and went to Hazelbeach in the evening to the Ferry House Inn, which was disspointing. It needs a little tlc, the staff were confused and not great, and unfortunately nearly all the food was overcooked. Won’t return.

I used to go down here on the BMX’s many years ago, to go “mud surfing”, when you would run along the mud flats and dive into the mud and skip across the goo. Seemed fun back then.

On the way back we used to be so thirsty we would look for a farmers irrigation pipe with a hole in it, and drink from the pipe – gawd knows where the water came from, but we didn’t die – well not all of us.

Managed a quick run down Clay Lanes and through town, and got very confused with the new round-about they are building – but got back just before the weather went nuts. Thunder and torrential rain. On the way back the road into Port Talbot was rubbish, stupid 50 mile an hours “warning signs” and a tail back for about 6 miles. Not fun.

Wasn’t raining when we got back.