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…

Another day another walk, not surprisingly still involving a lake but this one was Paula’s idea.  We went shopping first thing in the morning, also Paula’s idea – 50% off in Hawkshead, which is apparently a bargain that cannot be allowed to pass, although to be fair I did get three really good quality walking shirts and a pair of intermediate walking boots – not as hardcore as my proper boots but more substantial than my hiking trainers.  We also got stuff for lunch from the Spar – our picnic would have a variety of goodies including a bottle of cava.

Most of the houses in our part of the Lledr valley, on the northern side, have their own paths going up and linking with the forestry roads which then meander towards Betws or Dolwyddelan – but beware, they are typical forestry paths that can just stop in the middle of nowhere leaving you no alternative than turning back the way you have come – my GPS isn’t much use but the map usually keeps me on the right track – if only we had taken one with us…

Our path starts off with a serious hill – I’ve yet to make it to the top without having to stop at least once, but there is a cracking point to stop just after halfway up.

Once you’re at the top the plateau is your oyster – and the puddles your cooling down pools!  Being so local to us we do these walks a lot but there’s always something new and interesting to see, even if it’s only the changing seasons and with Spring well and truly under way we’re starting to lose some of the views as the leaves come through.

Observant readers will have noticed that that is indeed Siabod in the background! 

We were taking our quickest route to the lake which takes just over half an hour so we got there just before 1 and couldn’t believe it because the only bench on the lakeside was still empty – bearing in mind this was a Bank Holiday Monday, the lake is very close to Betws and there is even a car park for the criminally lazy.  The bench was at the other end of the lake so we set off towards it at a brisk pace.  Of course as we virtually reached the track that takes you to the bench we saw 4 other people going at pace and obviously not believing their luck at getting a free bench… 

But it’s a cracking lake with plenty of other spots to settle down so we just carried on round the lake – every single other spot was taken, including the couple we had passed up in favour of The Bench… 

Our planned route was to come up one side of the lake and then to take the path on the opposite side to get back home but by going further up the valley and coming down near Pont Y Pant – leaving a lovely walk back to the house along the river.  By now we were at the other side of the lake where we had originally come up so rather than trekking round the lake we decided to head back and take the roman road leading to Pont Y Pant via our normal path – stopping somewhere en route to have lunch. 

Neither of us could agree on a spot that was suitable so we ended up at the head of the roman road and still hadn’t had lunch.  This point in the track is a cross-road, one of which leads to the lake and was the path we had originally intended to walk back on.  We decided to take it back to the lake instead and have another go there.  I’m not quite sure how but somewhere on this walk back to the lake we took a wrong turn and ended up walking much further than we needed to – by the time we actually got back to the lake it was 3:30, we were both starving and the cava had warmed up!  Things were only made worse when Sami tried to steal my roll – I think even she was shocked by her own cheek!  And she certainly didn’t get a share of anything we had and as Megan had just eaten something disgusting off the floor neither did she!  I have to remember to take dog food with me in future!

After 4 hours of trekking on what was meant to be a 2 hour stroll we decided we couldn’t face another hour and a half to get back home so Paula took the dogs and the rucksack (complaining of feeling like a squaddie) off down the easy route into Betws and I went off at top speed, in the opposite direction, back to the house to pick up the car and drive up the forestry track to pick her up – I got to her before she had got very far because apparently Sami was extremely upset that I had been left behind and kept on jumping up in front of her trying to get her to turn back – which still didn’t get her into my good books after trying to nick my roll.

Next weekend I’m concentrating on the garden – although the weather forecast is for lots of sunshine so we’ll probably be confined to indoor activities…

You have to park up a fair way from the dam because the track has been closed off to traffic – the houses around the lake are deserted, presumably bought off with Compulsory Purchase Orders, and the landscape is about as flat as you get anywhere around here!

In the bottom right of the picture above you can just make out a black line which is the massive pipe coming out of the reservoir – it’s the first thing you see when you come over the brow of the hill.  The other thing you see are millions of sheep so the dogs were on their leads most of the time.

The dam is about a mile from where we parked the car but our route was taking us higher, up around the north side so we got a decent view of the lake as a whole.

About now the weather forecasters’ predictions actually became true and it started to rain for the first time over the weekend – only lasted ten minutes though.  Keeping the dogs on the lead, a spot of rain and a really quite boring lake were enough to make us give up even though we’d only been walking an hour or so.  Walking back along the shore of the lake did mean we could let the dogs off their leads because the sheep didn’t like the lake either… but they did like the dam!

The drive there and back was by far the most interesting part of the trip and offered some pretty stunning views.

And overlooking Trefriw

 

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…

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 8^th 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.

We normally leave the car in the train station car park, go over the bridge and down past the station house. There is a small parking area on the right and then the start of the path. The path up the valley starts with a hill that isn’t all that steep but does go on and on and on. But once that’s out of the way it’s pretty much flat – which makes it a popular walk with lots of people so we nearly always see someone else on this one. This is about the highest point on our walk, guess where Paula is standing!

The walk is about 5 miles in total and usually takes about 2 hours – we’re in no rush. There are quite a few paths to take but the most obvious are the two that follow right around the edge – one at the bottom of the valley and one about two thirds of the way up. This time we were lazy and did the lower path – it still looks great from the furthest point up the valley though.

Our way back was down the left hand side of the valley in the photo above and just before the excavated site (Elan’s house, I believe) we cross back over to the other side of the valley using the foot bridge to get over the river. There are two reasons for this, the dogs stay off their leads for longer because we don’t walk through the village and this river is one of Sami’s favourite swimming spots – hours of fun can be had for her chasing sticks as they float off. Today was a bit flipping cold for all that messing around though – even if most of the snow had melted by the time we got here!

I started from Capel Curig, using the car park behind the shops where the A5 splits to go off to Bangor or towards Snowdon. The map figured the trip was 5.3 miles and would take about 3 hours to complete but with decent snow I added an extra half hour to my estimate as I was meeting Paula and the in-laws in a nice little hotel at the other end for lunch.

My route was going to take me up Cefn Y Capel, across Bwlch Goleuni and straight over the top of Y Foel Goch, coming down the Miner’s Track and into the Pen Y Gwryd Hotel. We would basically go across the top of the right hand side of the valley if you are looking towards Snowdon, with Moel Siabod on your left.

We were walking in slushy snow from the beginning, with intermittent spells of ankle-deep mud – which is where the dogs come in to their own, if they sink you know to avoid that bit! Half a mile of continuous climb and we were in the snow.

With the first hard climb done it levelled out and gave me a chance to get my breath back – the dogs just seemed pleased I was finally picking the pace up a bit… The wind was howling by now but the views were stunning.

The next climb was a bit harsh and I had to get out the Yak-Traks to keep my footing, the dogs just thought it was great because the snow was getting deeper and they could dive right underneath it! But by the time I reached the top, visibility was quite low because the wind was whipping up so much snow and ice – with my jacket fully zipped up I was OK but the dogs were less impressed with their ears streaming behind them and their eyes just little slits – I didn’t have to mention walking to heel once! Having the map as well as the GPS was invaluable as I could pick out the path and know what was coming up ahead; you could see the path because the snow was very even rather than broken up with the heathers on either side. Even so, I relied on the GPS more than once to know exactly where we were going. We eventually hit the Miner’s Track and then it was all down hill.

You might have noticed the harnesses the dogs are wearing. They aren’t fashion accessories, or even to keep them warm, they essentially mean the dogs have a handle on their backs so they are easy to pick up and they also have a lead loop so you can attach them without getting soaking wet! If you’ve ever tried to put a lead on a wet spaniel you’ll know what I mean… They were especially useful at the end of this walk – towards the bottom of the Miner’s Track there is a footbridge over a small river, it’s a grated metal effort, half a metre wide, with a hand rail. I went straight over it without thinking only to turn round and see both dogs staring at me as if I was mad and may have just levitated across the water. Sami loves a bit of water and after a moment’s thought dived straight into the river and swam across. Megan on the other hand loves a bit of water but only if it has a lot of mud involved and she doesn’t actually have to do any swimming – so I went back, picked her up by her handle and carried her over, during which time Sami was back in the river, out the other side then back in again, thoroughly confused but very pleased with herself.

That just left the Pen Y Gwryd for a well deserved pint, roaring fire and roast beef with all the trimmings – huge portion so plenty for the dogs to join in! Happy spaniels must be one of the greatest aids to floor sweeping any human has ever witnessed.

We’ll definitely being doing this walk again but I’ll be waiting for some sunshine so I can properly appreciate the views and show that there aren’t always grey clouds in Snowdonia!

This was the view a couple of years ago on the way to the top of Snowdon – a dozen of us idiots set off and it was awesome – definitely a 20 year old single malt of a walk though… but no dogs, it was scary enough looking after myself! We started at Pen Y Pass and went up the Pyg. With no crampons I had to dig in with every step – my legs were killing me for a few days afterwards – I now use Yak-Traks!

I’m lucky enough to live in the middle of Snowdonia National Park with a wonderful “other-half” and two idiot Springer Spaniels – all of whom love trekking about the hills and valleys enjoying the fantastic scenery. We can go out for a three hour walk and never see another soul, which is great in terms of tranquillity but seems a bit of shame that nobody else is enjoying the views and so that is the point of this blog – as well as letting my dad (another keen walker) know what I’m up to and feel slightly jealous because he only has the Purbeck Coast and New Forest to play with until he (and mum, walker – not quite as keen) come up to stay with us for a holiday.

So, enjoy the photos and I’m afraid you will have to put up with dogs in action shots because I think they are more interesting than just great scenery!