Mum and Dad came up to see us for a few days so I took the week off work. Dad decided he wanted to check out the views from the Glyders again – he did them a few years back but I’ve never tried them and the weather was looking perfect for a lad’s day out! As it was definitely a Black Label route only Sami was coming with us – Paula and Mum would walk into Betws with Megan and meet us for pint and animated discussion of our daring do later. It’s probably going to be the last walk I don’t take Megan on because I’ve done a couple of interesting routes since this one and she’s been better behaved than Sami…
In preparation for the week I persuaded Paula I couldn’t do without a decent camera so, after a trip to Jessops, I set off with a Canon 450D and a couple of lenses. Believe me, the photos in this blog are only a fraction of the ones I took on the walk and I couldn’t be more pleased with my new toy, although the operator could do with some more practice!
We parked at the bottom of the Miner’s Track near the Pen Y Gwryd Hotel – our rationale being that, although parking at Pen Y Pass would make the start of the walk easier, it would be really hard finishing it by trekking up the road, and for the extremely impoverished it was free to leave the car there!
The trek up the road is well known to anyone who doesn’t get to the Pen Y Pass car park at a reasonable time or isn’t astonishingly lucky (see Highs and Lows – Part 2 – Saturday). Face the on-coming traffic and be ready to jump over the barrier when people come round the corners too fast – although generally there aren’t too many problems! Once you get to the car park, instead of turning left to do the Miner’s and Pyg paths up Snowdon, carry on past the car park and buildings and turn right at the footpath sign on the other side of the road. You cut around behind the buildings and the climbing starts immediately. Within a couple of hundred metres we came across a huge water tank and a bunch of tents, although it seemed a strange place to have them (tents not tank) – admittedly sheltered from the wind but one of the few places in Snowdonia with absolutely no view! And the weather had been nice for days…
With the first climb finished the ground levelled out for a while so we could get our breath back and start to admire the views.
That’s Llyn Cwmffynnon and of course Moel Siabod…
As the climb starts again you can follow the extremely helpful red blobs – patches of paint put down to show you the easiest route up the hill. As always I had plotted our route into the GPS according to the path on the OS map; it didn’t follow the blob route exactly but we did.
Our route up to the Glyders keeps Snowdon’s peak (in the background below) quite well hidden most of the time – behind Garnedd Ugain (in the forground), home of the rather terrifying Crib Goch route and not one I’m likely to be taking the dogs up…
Our much more pleasant path was still climbing relatively steeply and Pen Y Pass soon disappeared behind us.
And the twin peaks we were aiming for loomed up ahead of us.
A bit more climbing, a few more red blobs, and we were pretty much at the top where it flattens out completely and we started seeing other walkers, although we had been overtaken up our route by one guy, going like a rocket and looking like he could keep up that pace all day!
The views from the top were as you might expect, spectacular. This one overlooks Llyn Idwal, down the valley following the A5 towards Bangor, the Menai Strait and Anglesey.
A bit more wandering around and a couple of hundred photos later and we had done Glyder Fawr and it was time to take on the next peak, which is actually dead easy to do once you’re up here and very little climbing required!
But you do get a different perspective on the surrounding peaks and valleys, like this one looking down over the valley the Afon Glaslyn runs through, going around the base of Snowdon following the A498.
Another route up to the Glyders is over Tryfan, via Heather Terrace, which sounds like a pleasant stroll but is over the only peak in Snowdonia that supposedly cannot be reached without using your hands and knees. Another one I’m not taking the dogs up!
After all that it was definitely time for a rest and some lunch – this time round I even remembered food for the dog! I’d also recommend taking water for dogs as there are not a lot of natural water sources up here. After some fiddling with the camera I managed to get the timer function to work!
I even let dad take some photos – this is the famous cantilever with me and Sami – although unfortunately you can’t see the sliver of moon in the background of this shot which set off the beautiful blue sky superbly! We had been extremely lucky on the way up, quite a few clouds around to help us cool down occasionally but by the time we reached the top they had all dispersed and everything was completely clear.
I’ve even forced Paula to have that shot as the wallpaper on her PC! The peaks of the Glyders are completely different to their surroundings – shards of rock jutting into the sky like a huge stony hedgehog.
With Glyder Fach conquered that just left the walk back down with the stunning view of the Glaslyn valley to occupy us.
By this time we had spent longer than anticipated messing about at the top and were getting late for our meeting with the girls. Using all my pre-planning capabilities I had remembered to bring out my phone but didn’t actually have any credit on it and didn’t have my debit cards… I had to wait for Paula to call me, once we were overdue the habitual “reached summit” phone call, to explain the situation. Again we were lucky with the weather being recently dry and sunny because it meant we could take a short cut to the Miner’s track over what would normally have been knee-deep boggy ground. Once we hit the track, the car and hotel were soon in sight but still a long way off.
Although we were following the Miner’s track down it’s still not a path you can take too quickly – it’s far from smooth and meanders around all the way down, cutting through numerous rivers – but it’s easier than making up your own path! As the ground started to level out towards the bottom Sami spotted the car and went into sulk mode – even though we had been out for hours!
Her sulk mode involves sitting and then lying down and refusing to budge until I put the lead on her. Once the lead is on she’s happy and will trot along willingly, although being lifted by her handle over the bridge at the bottom of the path never goes down too well…
The whole walk was about 6.5 miles (10.5km) long and we climbed nearly 850 metres in height. We took our time, walking for about 5 hours and reached two peaks, Glyder Fawr at 999 metres and Gyder Fach at 994 metres. Unusually for one of my treks neither of the routes, up or down, were better or worse than the other, both a challenge but no need for hands and knees scrabbling on either. I would highly recommend them to anyone who fancies doing something a bit different to Snowdon and as my 70 year young dad managed them so can you – as long as you have kept yourself very fit for the past 40 years…
