Anonymous
11-07-2005, 01:46 PM
On Saturday 2nd July this year, I completed my 5th walk up Snowdon this year alone.
3 of my walk have been to follow miners up and then Llanberis path down, another attempt was cut short and the last one I chose to do (2nd July) it in reverse this time. To put it mildly, I won't be trying that method again in a hurry.
My first walk of the year ended just as I was crossing the gap at Llyn Llydaw. I suddenly came down with flu like symtoms, leaving me with rather severe muscle pains and found it hard to drive. It also left me with an urge to travel the 72 miles home, which left me very stiff for a few weeks, having also suffere viral fatigue.
To say I wasn't best pleased was an understatement, as I was rather looking forward to my first walk of the year.
My second walk was rather uneventful, until about 200 yards from the zig-zags. I know all the stories about the weather setting in very fast, but you don't quite see what people are on about until you actual experiance it.
The cloud shot down the mountain side at an astonishing speed. With no visability of the summit (just out of view) but a good clear and sunny sky over the crest where Pyg & Llanberis join, I am sure you can see how far it dropped. Later talks with a few other climbers suggested it dropped down as far at Llyn Glaslyn in one go, which made me double-take.
2 1/2 hours after arriving at Pen-Y-Pass, a good soaking and a hot-chocolate at half-way during the decent, I was back to my car.
My 3rd visit saw a near perfect day, and with my dog it was an excuse to get out. Walking miners in the sun is a breath taking to put it mildly. With slight cloud covering the summit ever 10 mins, but quickly burning off.
My dog is one of the laziest things you would ever see, but she was more determined than me to make the climb. Normaly I talk a rest stop every 20 to 30 mins for water, but my dog saw to it that it couldn't happen. With a new lease of life, she almost dragged me up and back down.
My 4th time I left the dog behind, as I wanted to enjoy the walk at my own pace and enojy I did. Although a little more cloud at walk 3, it was still a nice day for it, with little wind at the top, which was my biggest shock and that of a few others there too.
In all, both these took me 2 hours flat.
The 5th time saw it to be a rather mixed day weather wise.
When I visit Wales, I stay with family in Conwy, where I woke up to find a rather sunny day. Making the journey to Llanberis for 8:30am saw the weather to be overcast, but not overly bad.
Having made it past half-way the cloud started to set in, with was cooling, but damned wet at the same time.
Coming back down Miners was much of the same, until the path down from Glaslyn. The cloud cleared so fast, I didn't actualy notice until I was a good 20 to 30 meters under cloud level.
This resulted in another 2 hour flat trek.
I did walks 2, 3 & 4 in the space of 4 weeks. I am a bit of a couch potatoe, but not overly unfit, and I didn't half enjoy it, with little fatigue, with the exception of knowing you had done it the next day.
I got some fantastic photos of Llydaw & Glaslyn which I will try to get scanned in for you all to see. Thanks to the magic on my Hoya filters, you truly wouldn't know they where taken on Snowdon. My camera is pretty old now (an Olympus OM10), and there is slight light bleed on the film tracks, which could have been cured during processing (but the request was ignored).
In all, I have alrady made plans for my next walk, as I head up to see my first look at the Snowdon Run on Saturday 23rd of july this year. A live televised event from the Llanberis path, where I will see how those with true grit do it, unlike my leasurly pace.
Hope to see you on the slopes on the 23rd, to make my 6th climb of the year and the 14th walk up snowdon in only 3 years.
3 of my walk have been to follow miners up and then Llanberis path down, another attempt was cut short and the last one I chose to do (2nd July) it in reverse this time. To put it mildly, I won't be trying that method again in a hurry.
My first walk of the year ended just as I was crossing the gap at Llyn Llydaw. I suddenly came down with flu like symtoms, leaving me with rather severe muscle pains and found it hard to drive. It also left me with an urge to travel the 72 miles home, which left me very stiff for a few weeks, having also suffere viral fatigue.
To say I wasn't best pleased was an understatement, as I was rather looking forward to my first walk of the year.
My second walk was rather uneventful, until about 200 yards from the zig-zags. I know all the stories about the weather setting in very fast, but you don't quite see what people are on about until you actual experiance it.
The cloud shot down the mountain side at an astonishing speed. With no visability of the summit (just out of view) but a good clear and sunny sky over the crest where Pyg & Llanberis join, I am sure you can see how far it dropped. Later talks with a few other climbers suggested it dropped down as far at Llyn Glaslyn in one go, which made me double-take.
2 1/2 hours after arriving at Pen-Y-Pass, a good soaking and a hot-chocolate at half-way during the decent, I was back to my car.
My 3rd visit saw a near perfect day, and with my dog it was an excuse to get out. Walking miners in the sun is a breath taking to put it mildly. With slight cloud covering the summit ever 10 mins, but quickly burning off.
My dog is one of the laziest things you would ever see, but she was more determined than me to make the climb. Normaly I talk a rest stop every 20 to 30 mins for water, but my dog saw to it that it couldn't happen. With a new lease of life, she almost dragged me up and back down.
My 4th time I left the dog behind, as I wanted to enjoy the walk at my own pace and enojy I did. Although a little more cloud at walk 3, it was still a nice day for it, with little wind at the top, which was my biggest shock and that of a few others there too.
In all, both these took me 2 hours flat.
The 5th time saw it to be a rather mixed day weather wise.
When I visit Wales, I stay with family in Conwy, where I woke up to find a rather sunny day. Making the journey to Llanberis for 8:30am saw the weather to be overcast, but not overly bad.
Having made it past half-way the cloud started to set in, with was cooling, but damned wet at the same time.
Coming back down Miners was much of the same, until the path down from Glaslyn. The cloud cleared so fast, I didn't actualy notice until I was a good 20 to 30 meters under cloud level.
This resulted in another 2 hour flat trek.
I did walks 2, 3 & 4 in the space of 4 weeks. I am a bit of a couch potatoe, but not overly unfit, and I didn't half enjoy it, with little fatigue, with the exception of knowing you had done it the next day.
I got some fantastic photos of Llydaw & Glaslyn which I will try to get scanned in for you all to see. Thanks to the magic on my Hoya filters, you truly wouldn't know they where taken on Snowdon. My camera is pretty old now (an Olympus OM10), and there is slight light bleed on the film tracks, which could have been cured during processing (but the request was ignored).
In all, I have alrady made plans for my next walk, as I head up to see my first look at the Snowdon Run on Saturday 23rd of july this year. A live televised event from the Llanberis path, where I will see how those with true grit do it, unlike my leasurly pace.
Hope to see you on the slopes on the 23rd, to make my 6th climb of the year and the 14th walk up snowdon in only 3 years.