Here be Dragons.

Snowdon, 19^th May 2012.

North East meets East Midlands in the West! The Northern Division (Ian and Robin) travelled to Wales on Friday evening, to be met on Saturday morning by two members of the Midland contingent (Joe and Myself) with the aim of climbing Snowdon. That was the plan anyway. Didn’t quite go as simple as that due to a full car park at Pen y pass and a general lack of mobile network coverage, which meant that after an hour of waiting, Joe and myself set off along the Pyg track, hoping Ian and Robin would catch us up, which on fitness levels wouldn’t be too hard.

Having never walked up a mountain before this was going to be a real test for Joe and I, which should really give us an idea of how difficult this whole challenge was going to be, if it was going to take us 4 hours just to get up Snowdon, then there was a lot of training to get in.

View from the Pyg track towards Llanberis

So, about 15 minutes into our trek, we got a phone call from Robin saying they had trouble parking and would meet us at the summit. At least we were in the same area! Onward we trod. At about 2000 feet (I’m guessing here) we hit low cloud and mist, making it difficult to see any of the views which was a big disappointment seeing as we were bristling with cameras. Trekking on, the visibility got worse and in some places you could only see a few feet in front.

Visibility poor, crazy sheep on a rock ledge...nutters!!

The amount of people walking on Snowdon was amazing, in some places it became congested (usually the nasty slippery narrow bits) so we had to use some fancy footwork to get past the slower ones and in turn, the faster ones passed us. The going got tougher, taking it’s toll on us and thoughts of ‘who’s great idea was this?’ , ‘what have I gotten us in to’ and ‘how much further do we have to go?’ went through my mind. Seeing as it was me with the daft ideas, it was better that I kept my thoughts to myself. After a few hundred short ‘ get your breath back’ stops we finally reached the summit. It was a great feeling knowing that we had made it to the top, despite the fact that we couldn’t see anything. After a quick refuel in the visitor centre, we called Robin, who told us he’d be there in 30 minutes, which was good, because I reckoned it would take that long for my legs to stop feeling like jelly.

It's all downhill from here kiddo!

The Northern Division arrived via Crib Goch (the hard way) and after introductions, a brief review of the morning’s events so far, a refuel and a fair amount of piss taking, we headed back down. Following the Pyg track until it met with the Miners track and then down towards Glaslyn (Tarn) where we stopped for a photo opportunity against a wonderful view of the mist. We had done all of the hard descent part and now it was a case of a fairly leisurely walk without too many slopes to Llyn Llydaw (Bigger Tarn). It wasn’t long before we arrived back at the car park at Pen y pass.

It's amazing what comes out of the mist.

So, how did we do time wise I hear you ask…..you did ask didn’t you? On the ascent (that’s the up bit) it took us 2 hours 14 minutes, which I’m pretty pleased with as it means that we’d be able to complete Snowdon in the time required with a little bit more fitness. The descent (the down bit) was 1 hour 57 minutes.  We have to bear in mind that by the time we get to Snowdon, we’ll have already done something similar in Scotland and England, so still lots of fitness work to do yet.

Thanks to Ian, Robin and Joe for a great day (despite my negative thoughts), I now know the enormity of the challenge ahead. Onwards and upwards.

Chris