Snowdon II
Thursday 10th May
Ok… we made it. Four hours and fifty minutes (and 3500 calories burned) from Pen-Y-Pass car park and back via the summit of Snowdon. The weather forecast posted at the bottom promised 50mph winds (with 60mph gusts) and heavy rain. Not the sort of day you want to go up a mountain. However, standing in the car park, the wind wasn’t too high, and the clouds, while covering the summit, were high enough that we figured we should give it a go. The plan was, however wet or miserable it became we’d carry on. If it became unsafe, we’d turn back. As it turned out, the rain wasn’t too strong, and the winds were almost non-existant.
Well, I have to say - what beautiful countryside! And the weather treated us very well - no rain on the way up, and we didn’t enter the clouds until about 2/3 of the way up. Towards the summit, though, the drops of mist became larger and larger, turning into rain. We reached the summit - the highest point in England and Wales and walked up the steps to the top of the cairn, looking at the wonderful views it was telling us we could see - Ireland? Nope… mist. This peak? Nope… mist. That peak? Nope… seagull in mist. After that, we headed via a geocache back down the route we came. About 1/3 of the way down we were still in cloud, but found another geocache and stopped briefly for lunch. After that, it was waterproof trousers on (the jackets had gone on long ago) and the slog back down to the car park. In all, the cloud probably followed us about 2/3 of the way down the mountain, definitely worse visiblity than the way up. Overall a great trip. I’m sure that anyone who is reasonably fit and savvy could do the Miner’s Track with no problem. The track did actually disappear a couple of times, but given enough scouting, or waiting for people coming down, we found the path up easily. Coming back down was much easier to follow the track.
There follows an elevation profile. Our ‘training’ walk in Cheshire is shown superimposed to the same scale, with lowest points matched to give some idea of the scale difference:
An aerial view with some waypoints:
And a 3d view of the same:
A photo from around the ‘Rest 2′ mark on the ascent. Note that the nearer lake is some 200 metres higher up the hillside than the further lake. Difficult to comprehend unless you’ve just walked up to it.
After Snowdon, it was back to the hotel for a quick bath, then off to the seaside in Llandudno for fish and chips, and to dip toes in the sea at the lowest point in Wales (some 1,085 m or 3,560 ft lower than we had been just six hours earlier), then back to the hotel for sauna, swim and bed. Ok… it was sauna, swim, bit more sauna, swim again, a little more sauna… bit of a swim, maybe sauna, swim, shower, bed. Did I mention we stayed at a great hotel where we had private use of a sauna and pool?
Brilliant trip - it gets the mind going for the next challenge now… any suggestions? (Don’t say the Three Peaks… not yet)
Sounds like you had a brilliant day (though i think i would have just stayed in the sauna and pool all day). Shame the cloud cover was a bit heavy, would have loved to have seen a few pictures from the sumit.
not sure if you have done any of these but for the next challenge how about:
rock climbing / absailing
paragliding
base jumping
Steve
11 May 07 at 6:10 am
Yay you made it! Looking forward to more photo’s of the trip!
UKCodeMonkey
11 May 07 at 7:29 am
Congratulations Mr Stu.
So Everest next then? (are there goats on Everest?)
rollasoc
11 May 07 at 8:16 am
YAY! Well done, you made it
It’s great seeing the superimposed profile from the last walk… Different league eh.
Baah… The minors path is for girls LOL - There’s only one thing for it… Up Snowdon again, but up over Crib Goch and Crib y Ddysgl this time.
DoGGa
11 May 07 at 9:22 am
Well done! Ooh I’m so impressed. I was thinking about you while I was doing exam prep - glad you didn’t fall off the mountain.
Mort
11 May 07 at 11:05 am
I’ve been to Snowdon summit about twenty times, and seen the view once! Well done you. How about the Carneddau next? Not as high as Snowdon, but more rugged and tougher going, especially if you come up from the southwest end.
Gottle
11 May 07 at 1:23 pm
Woohoo, you made it! Well done. I can’t wait to see what your next challenge is going to be.
Dakota
11 May 07 at 2:12 pm
For the next challenge you could go and get your photo taken at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch train station.. For a greater challenge you could even try to pronounce it without spitting on someone
Steve
11 May 07 at 2:28 pm
Cool… and while I’m there, I could also recite the (Finnish) longest word in the world: epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän. And no, I didn’t have to look that up before writing it!
stu
11 May 07 at 2:33 pm
Good work! There was nearly a Midsomer Murder on Snowdon this week - I imagine that’s because there’s nobody left in Midsomer.
Lois
11 May 07 at 2:37 pm
Congratulamifications
fak
11 May 07 at 4:40 pm
Thanks fak and everyone else for your congratulations. I’m really itching to do more now… I didn’t realise I was a hill-walker
stu
11 May 07 at 6:19 pm
That’s quite a big hill isn’t it? You didnt say how much it hurt?
How about the 10 tors or Higher Willhays/Yes Tor?
lordhutton
11 May 07 at 8:48 pm
It didn’t hurt a great deal, Hutters. At a push, I think we could have done it again straight away. But we could definitely have walked another ten miles on the level afterwards.
Still aching a little, but no more than after my first ten-mile walk in March.
stu
11 May 07 at 8:51 pm
Everest!
Seriously, jolly well done. Now let’s see if I can get Chris to watch Eraserhead…. (fat bloody chance)
Jenny
11 May 07 at 9:27 pm
Haha… good call, Jenny. However, I don’t think it’ll happen - you’re “fat bloody chance” is, I fear, prophetic.
stu
11 May 07 at 9:30 pm
I’m getting dizzy
plume
12 May 07 at 8:12 pm