The weather was nice again… not for sunbathing as it was slightly overcast but the cloud was high so it was a perfect day for some serious walking – and photo taking, you’ve been warned! I got Sami harnessed up, packed some lunch into my new rucksack (Berghaus Freeflow – not huge – 23 litres but enough for my purposes and the air flow idea is genius!) and set off for Snowdon. Got to the Pen Y Pass car park for just after 9:30 to find the Carpark Full and No Waiting signs already put out – I was also put-out. Still determined to do the mountain so I drove back down the hill to the Pen Y Gwryd Hotel and parked on the verge opposite. It added about an extra 2 miles to the trek and over 100 metres of extra climb but using the surge of adrenalin fuelled frustration I was in the car park in 15 minutes and ready to start the walk proper.
I was going to do the Miners\Pyg I had planned a couple of weeks ago because it’s one of the quickest walks to the peak – none of them are easy, even the Llanberis path because that is so flipping long! Neither are any of the walks really part of secret Snowdonia as there are hundreds of people trekking all of them – hence the full car parks! The Miner’s path starts off very easy – a nice wide path, relatively flat but still with some stunning views. For the first 3 miles you don’t ascend more than 300 metres!
After you’ve done the first long rounding bend you come to the first lake – Llyn Teyrn. It’s quite a long way below the path but that doesn’t stop Sami wanting to know if she can go for a swim…
As you can just make out from the photo above the path carries on flatly around Teyrn and then cuts back to the right to bring you to the largest lake on the walk – Llyn Llydaw – a massive reservoir that the huge pipe comes flowing out from. It’s split by a manmade causeway and even the overflow section is twice the size of Llyn Teyrn – but this time near enough for Sami to have a swim!
The path again follows around the edge of the lake and you finally get to see why this is called the Miner’s Track, with large derelict mining buildings jutting out from the mountainside.
Strangely enough this was where we saw the only wildlife other than various birds (mainly seagulls), Snowdon’s wild goats – they must be hard as nails being able to survive winters up here!
After that there’s almost a bit of climbing to do! But now you really start to see the task ahead of you…
The path gets steeper again – in the space of half a mile you have just climbed 200 metres of the 300 you will do on the easy stretch of the Miner’s path! But the path does take you past the waterfalls, which are loud and far more impressive than this photo suggests!
That small climb brings you to the final lake – Glaslyn. Fed by the Pant y Lluwchfa, stretching almost from the peak and feeding the Afon Glaslyn down into Llyn Llydaw: a staging area for two massive sets of waterfalls and an ideal spot for a break before the real hard slog starts.
This next photo attempts to show the route and meeting up of the two paths – but I do not guarantee the accuracy of the Miner’s in any way! You can see how much more gradual the Pyg is up until they meet – the Miner’s (and the Pyg) are steep from now until the top ridge.
From this point at the bottom of the slope to the top is just under 3000 feet of climb – all of it leg and lung busting. The path is well defined so you don’t really need a map or the GPS plus you are following loads of people so it’s hard to get lost. There’s a lot of work going on to maintain the path as well. I wouldn’t fancy having to shift those rocks around by hand, there’s no way you could get anything mechanical up here, even though the bags were dropped off by helicopter – I just hope they close it when they do!
I was taking a lot of quick breaks by now – a couple of minutes walk followed by a few seconds resting, Sami likes the walking but gets bored very quickly by the resting… it also means we were constantly leapfrogging the same people as we all made our way to the top.
The other people rarely remember me but they all remember the dog! Especially the kids and other dogs, of which there were a surprisingly large amount. By now everyone is finding it hard going but when you see the peak getting closer it does make it seem a bit easier… and that is snow on the mountain!
Now is usually a good time to get your jacket on – I’ve been in my walking shirt up until now. The next milestone is the ridge that leads up to the summit – once you’re on it the other side of the mountain appears, along with the howling gale you get however good the weather has been – hence the jacket.
The views are well worthwhile though! Llanberis is just visible in the distance.
Moel Cynghorion
Foel Goch and Foel Gron
Just a short, relatively flat, walk to the top now – it took me just over 2 hours to make it (1085 metres or 3496 feet at the peak, 3207 feet from the Pen Y Pass car park) which isn’t bad as I had the extra road work to do! The way up is surrounded by groups having lunch – the peak gets too busy to settle down comfortably but I’ve gone this far I’m at least going to take some photos from up there! Even the Pyg looks a bit distant now!
And Moel Siabod. (Our local mountain and well known to any one who has read the rest of this blog! If you don’t know it just keep scrolling down!)
The Summit Café is undergoing a complete rebuild and they’ve done a lot of work since the last time I was up here – they were laying the foundations then. And while the building work is being done the train isn’t in use so at least you know everyone up here has done it the hard way!
We found a nice quiet spot for lunch – Sami’s getting used to sharing my lunch now but I have got to remember to take dog biscuits with me in future! I also phoned Paula to let her know we’d reached the top – our plan was to meet up for a drink in the Royal Oak in Betws – I figured it would take me about an hour and a half to get back down and it would take her that long to walk into the village with Megan.
After 10 minutes for lunch we’re off again. In my opinion the worst part of the whole walk is stepping off the ridge to go back down the Pyg path – I thought it was last time I did this route, in the snow in 2006. It looks like a sheer drop with nothing to stop your fall – on the way up isn’t so bad because you’re out of breath and just itching to get to the ridge. On the way down it feels like a step into an abyss… but there do seem to be a lot more people on the way up now.
Where the Miner’s and Pyg join there is a large stone slab sticking out of the ground to mark it – just next to the bloke at the front in the picture below – not particularly interesting but it is there and there’s another one on the ridge where the paths come out.
Our walk back along the Pyg overlooks much of the Miner’s so you get a completely different perspective on the whole thing as well as enough wind to get Sami’s ears flapping.
But the views back up the mountain are no less spectacular!
Once you’ve passed the split where the Miner’s track goes off, the walk becomes much smoother with very little scrambling required.
I now understand why the organisers of our 2006 trip picked this route, at the time in knee-deep snow, with no grip from my boots and only one stick to grab hold of I thought it was slightly terrifying but if we’d done any other path (except the Llanberis trek which is only for young children or people afraid of heights) it would have been truly cheek clenching!
About half way back along the “just Pyg” path you get a nice view of the causeway going through Llyn Llydaw and about here you can split off the Pyg and head down a different route that brings you back out on the Miner’s track but you’d miss out on the Llanberis Pass valley which is worth a look in anybody’s book.
Then the other way, a bit further down…
And although we still had a mile to carry on after the Pen Y Pass car park the views from the road were still spectacular – even if you do look like a tourist taking photos from the road!
It took just under two hours to get back to the car so in total we’d been out for about 4 hours – Paula was waiting in the pub for a bit but not too long. The route I’d plugged into the GPS was 7.6 miles long and the map software estimated it would take me 4 hours – so I was happy enough with 2 miles added to that and to still get it done in 4! I highly recommend it if you’re feeling energetic and it is one of the quickest routes up and down the mountain, especially if you get to the car park early enough…
