Major news on the home front – we’re connected to mains water!! To celebrate the event, and make sure any emergency plumbing could be done, I took a few days off work. The Wednesday when the job was meant to start arrived and so did the workmen – who then pointed out that because our road is national speed limit they have to put up boards for road works at 600yds, 400yds and 200yds, as well as traffic lights – all of which they had failed to bring with them… I was not happy! Apparently this would mean contacting the local council and giving them 5 days notice before work could start. I was very unhappy! A small rant at an unfortunate girl in the contractor’s head office meant that the head honcho would call after 9:30 when they got into the office. The weather was great so I decided to climb a mountain instead of waiting – Paula didn’t fancy a mountain so she could deal with the water people!

I set off for Snowdon, map printed, GPS route downloaded – I was going up the Miner’s and coming down the Pyg. Not a route I’d done before and it would look cracking, with plenty of snow around once you got a bit of height. Paula got Sami sorted out – Megan couldn’t come because she had just come into season – while I packed lunch. We set out arriving at the Pen y Pass car park just after 10, to see the last space get filled. The day was not going well… I loitered with intent for a while but people seemed determined to stay and enjoy the day so I sulked and drove off. There was no way we were just going home – Sami sulking as well would have been unbearable, so I decided on Moel Siabod instead.

Siabod is our local mountain – you can see it from the field below our house – and it’s the 8th highest in the Snowdonia range at 872 metres. It’s set apart from the rest of Snowdonia so you get some great views from the top, assuming the weather is clear enough, and the Lledr valley is classed as part of Siabod’s own range.

I parked up near Pont Cyfyng, opposite to some spectacular waterfalls that kill at least one muppet rock diver every summer – making it easy to spot because of all the “Private – No Entry” signs.

Once across the bridge you go past a couple of houses and then head up to your right over the first cattle-grid. Cattle-grids offer no worries to Sami as her harness turns her into a small carrier bag, although she’s not too keen on being picked up. This is where the hill starts and it’s harsh but once you get out of the trees and pop out above the farm, the views start. Once you’ve got about a mile from the carpark the path starts to flatten out as it goes into the sheep fields. Siabod starts to loom above you with Dyffryn Mymbyr and the A4086 on the right and the Lledr Valley and the A470 on the left. Over Dyffryn Mymbyr is the ridge I walked both dogs and blogged as Another Snowy March – no snow this time though.

As the flattish path ends it feels like you have reached the mountain proper – the Western ridge starts but I’m not taking a dog up that way! This is also the first of three mini lakes on the way up and this one isn’t too steep around the edges so once Sami’s checked with me she is straight in.

It’s not much good for stick throwing as there aren’t any trees around but chasing a bit of heather is always fun… and the huge splash as she jumped in scared the life out of a fellow walker sitting just around the corner.

With my breath caught back it’s time to set off up hill again – through the disused quarry and its slag heaps – but you do get a cracking view down over the valley, with Capel Curig beneath us, that even Sami seems to enjoy.

After another couple of hundred metres you get to the second lake, which sounds easy but it’s a steep couple of hundred metres. It’s the smallest on the way up but it looks the deepest and although they’re a bit hard to see in the photo it has a couple of decent little waterfalls.

Now the climbing starts again – pretty unrelenting until you reach the final lake, which I tend to give a fairly wide berth as the ground all around it is boggy unless it’s the middle of summer and it hasn’t rained for at least a few weeks, so in mid-April it’s going to be boggy. The path around it is fairly easy to follow though and on this walk it was our first proper view of the snow to come.

Once you get past the top lake the obvious path runs out and you have to start picking your own route although the sheep know the best paths and there are usually a few foot prints to follow. By this stage you have come right around the mountain and you have views overlooking Dolwyddelan.

It’s a hard and continuous climb from now on, with many stops to rest for a minute – you can’t get too tired here because you’re generally picking your way over boulders and this time round there was a fair bit of snow. Ideal opportunities for snacking and taking in the view, even if Sami just wants to keep going.

The snow wasn’t too deep so it didn’t really slow me down, not enough for the Yak-Traks to come out – Sami just thought it was great as usual but the pace she goes over the rocks is very disconcerting. From the start of the snow we were probably only three hundred metres (quite a bit of hands and knees climbing though) from The Fence – the first sign that you have nearly reached the top and I always feel sorry for the blokes who had to lug all the posts and wire up to erect it… Once over The Fence it’s just a few more hundred metres to the top but it’s all quite flat compared to what we’ve just been up! The snow was knee deep in places by now and the wind always picks up as you approach the summit – so it was freezing cold and the first time I’d needed to wear a jacket the whole way up.

That just left the peak to do – and to have a bit of lunch, which is always shared with Sami (and Meg if she’d been there). It always surprising how many people are at the top considering I only saw one fellow trekker on my route up but it was even more surprising to get to there and find a stream of squaddies virtually running up the other side of the mountain doing an orienteering course, especially as they were only wearing trainers, shorts and t-shirts while I was in full hiking gear with a pack on my back. It took me just under two hours to get here from the car park so I must be getting fitter!

It was quite cloudy when we reached the top, which is always disappointing after that sort of climb but luckily by the time we’d eaten the clouds had floated off and it cleared up.

That just left the trek back – going down the easy route although I did slip and go A over T three times on the way down so maybe a stick would have helped after all… This is where you see loads of people on their way to the top – it’s a long climb but quite gradual and safe, not half as fun as the route I took up and you only get to see one side of the mountain.

This route takes you down the Capel Curig side of the mountain –looking over Dyffryn Mymbyr valley again.

There are some very soggy bits so Sami’s help in finding them saved me getting any wetter than I already was, although she did get seriously muddy.

Although with the view of Snowdon in the background it made a nice photo. I didn’t have the route plugged into my GPS because I had anticipated doing Snowdon so I can’t be too accurate about my placement on the ordinance survey map but this is about where the path appears. There’s a couple of stiles to get over – quite steep ones so I usually catch Sami on her way over and plonk her on the floor – she’d prefer to leap through the air but it goes right through me when she’s jumping from above my head-height!

As it starts levelling out you go into the woods on the opposite side of the lake from Plas y Brenin National Mountain Centre and you’re on the Forestry Commission paths. There are a few routes to get you back on to the road (A5) but if you keep taking the right hand forks on path splits you keep going along by the river, meaning Sami didn’t have to go on her lead until we reached the road where we initially crossed the bridge by the car park. Before then though there was just the little matter of getting Sami cleaned up.

And that was the walk done, one I highly recommend, Dad introduced this route to me a couple of years ago. You need to be reasonably fit but if you take your time rather than going as fast as possible (it took me just over and hour to get back to the car from the top) you get to enjoy great views from all sides of Siabod.

By the time I got home Paula had dealt with the water people who did manage to turn up the next day, although, after digging up both sides of the road and not finding the water supply, they realised they didn’t need the lights and signs because the main was right next to the house.