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Around 15-20 years ago, as I started walking on my own up the mountains again after a long absence of laziness (my brother and I had always been dragged up them by our parents on walking holidays), I put my name down for a Youth Hostel organised trip up Snowdon for Midsummer’s Night. The plan was to go up late (2300 hrs), spend the night on the summit and get up in time to see the sunrise at around 0400. The trip was run from Pen Y Pass Youth Hostel, which meant you could park for free in the (expensive) pass carpark. The top of the pass does get rather busy for parking
- Nutter’s Car Park.jpg
– no idea why they don’t just get the very regular buses up – much cheaper and that way you can traverse the mountain, choosing a descent route when you get to the summit (as I usually do) and get the bus back to the start.
As I drove towards Snowdon from Capel Curig, I found it was appearing increasingly daunting – I hadn’t seen it for years and it was a few hundred feet bigger than I’d been doing in the Lake District and a good deal more serious! In order to calm my fears, I decided to do a recce trip up the PYG track to have a look in daylight...
- Snowdon Classic Shot.jpg
I walked nearly to the start of the zig-zags out of the cwm above Llyn Glaslyn. The path (for those who haven’t done it) is excellently graded. There are a few steep but very short ‘ups’ as you leave the summit of the pass and climb to Bwlch Moch (where the paths split for Crib Goch or the PYG track) and then it is a very gentle climb to the start of the zig-zags. It was a nice afternoon with good views so I thoroughly enjoyed the walk.
- LLyn Llydaw end.jpg
- Llyn Llydaw & Lliwedd.jpg
- Snowdon fm Llyn Glaslyn.jpg
- Anyone done the ‘Y Gribin Ridge’? Looks interesting and is supposed to be okay…
That night, we gathered outside the hostel to be broken up into groups. At this point I found the group leaders were picking their groups for whichever route they (the leaders) fancied doing – not my idea at all! I’d recce’d the PYG track and, if there was a group going that way, I was too! There was a short argument before I got my way and I was swapped for someone in that group. I couldn’t believe that one group was planning to go over Crib Goch in the dark!
It was obviously thoroughly dark as we set off at 2300 hours but, with the path being stone-pitched, and it being a starry and clear night, there was no problem seeing where you were going so I personally didn’t bother with my headtorch at all on the ascent. After the first couple of steep bits there was a bit of a commotion within the group. Turned out one of the women (from London) had never been up a mountain before – it seemed a bit strange to me that, for her first mountain, she was going to do Snowdon in the middle of the night!! As we just had 2 guys in charge of our group and we’d gone too far for one to nip back with her, she was persuaded to continue!
The ascent went more or less without incident after that, apart from us getting slightly lost for a short while on the confusing bit just before the zig-zags started (this part has now been clarified and stone-pitched but I personally liked it better before). As we ascended the zig-zags, we started to step over people lying in sleeping bags on the path – obviously a popular place to be on mid-summer’s night – not sure why they decided to sleep on the path though... At the top of the zig-zags the pretty lights of Caernarfon and Anglesey twinkled into view and you could see the Menai Straits glittering.
The ascent took around 2 hours and we had a quick trip to the summit cairn before coming back down to the area of the cafe and jostling for position for the best sleeping places. A few of us roamed round to the front of the cafe... the whole of the paved area along the front was completely covered in bodies in sleeping bags! Me and another chap decided on the station roof as it was flat concrete – might not sound very comfortable but better than boulders!
I crawled into my sleeping bag after putting on my very warm cardigan and attempted to get some sleep. It wasn’t really the lack of comfort on the concrete which kept me awake all night but more the cold - I probably wasn’t very cold bodily but my head and face were frozen. So much for it being mid-summer – I’ve since realised that there is no such thing as a warm mountain summit, no matter what the weather.
It seemed like I’d only lain there for a couple of hours feeling miserable before someone came round ‘waking us up’ to watch the sunrise. I’ve never been less enthusiastic about anything in my life but crawled miserably out of my bag and got my camera out. I cheered up slightly when I struck up a conversation with the lass next to me who had exactly the same camera (Zenith Zenit11 manual SLR). We discussed the pros and cons of them as we clicked away at the sunrise (well, actually I only took one shot – I never snap away really). I think I mainly took mine to prove to folks back home (who know how much I hate mornings) that I really was there at sunrise and up and awake. I’m sure it’s the only sunrise shot I’ll ever take, short of getting benighted at some stage.
- Snowdon summit sunRISE.jpg
- Snowdon sunRISE.jpg
- Llynnau Glaslyn a Llydaw.jpg
We then set off back down the PYG track - or at least our group did – the Crib Goch lot must have enjoyed it as they went back down that way! Some people from the other groups joined them. As I was on nightshift that night back in Yorkshire, I became increasingly peeved at the slowness of the group. I stayed with them till around above Llyn Glaslyn when I informed them I was leaving the group as I wanted a quick kip in a layby before driving home and going to work! After that I shot down the mountain at a considerable speed, hence didn’t take any more photos, so here's one of the lovely vale of Gwynant below Snowdon!
- Vale of Gwynant.jpg