Climbing Snowdon - Wales' Highest Point

I'm at the A498 just below Snowdon. I'm gonna climb up it today. Weather's not fantastic but it's the best we've had this summer. I'm just gonna head up this road to the site of an old Roman fort and turn left and head up the road to Pen-y-pass. And then when I get up there I'm going to make my decision of which route I'm going to take to climb Snowdon. I've left the café at Pen-y-pass and now I'm just climbing the Miners' Track. It's very well graded. You know, you could probably get someone with a wheelchair up on it. Snowdon has half a million visitors climb it every year. Some by the mountain train that goes to the top, some by the footpaths. So they have to do work like this to stop the mountain being eroded completely. Now I'm walking the Miners' Track, I could take the Pyg Track or the Miners' Track from where I left my car. I could even have climbed Crib Goch but there's too much cloud and it's probably not the best day to try a really sharp ridge route like that. And there you can see Snowdon covered in cloud. I'm next to a small little lake or tarn called - I believe it's pronounced Llyn Teyrn. And you can see a small little farmhouse crumbling walls just down and lots of sheep still grazing around it. Just there. Interesting rocks I think there's quartz running through the seam. See it goes all the way up. You can see here they're actually tarmaced part of the route up the mountain. I remember reading about this in a newspapers, a lot of people complaining that it was making it too easy. Then other people saying it makes it more accessible. I’ll let you decide. It’s got a train that goes to the top anyway, who cares? Snowdon and Crib Goch are still covered in cloud. Hopefully it’ll lift when I get to the top. It’s approaching noon so it might burn off, you never know. Now I’m sat here by the reservoir Llyn Llydaw, it’s on the Miners’ Track going up to Snowdon. And I’m behind the old mine workings. No idea when they were operating or when it closed. There’s no information signs or anything about them. My map only says mine ruins. But at least you know now why it’s called the Miners’ Track. Because it was used by miners. I’m here at a small tarn, which I believe is pronounced Glaslyn. You can see soon I’ll have to start climbing up to where Snowdon is. Up in the clouds. Snowdon is 3,560 feet. I’ve had a few different sources say it’s slightly different but that’s the one that most seem to agree on. It tends to be always in cloud. Now, there’s a railway that goes to the top which was built in the late 1800’s. It was built in only a year, which I think is pretty impressive considering up the road from me they’ve been re-tarmacing a section of road and it’s taken them about two months. The day that the railway opened one of the trains got out of control and it crashed and there was a fatality. So it closed for about another year I think. And then it’s reopened and as far as I know there’s been no accidents since. It’s actually quite nice here. With a little bit of wind and rain but I’m getting quite pumped to climb that up there. And there’s a café at the top so I’m going to get a hot chocolate when I get there, which’ll be very nice. You don’t always manage to get a warm drink when you reach the top of a mountain. As you can see it’s a lot more crowded now with people coming down as well as coming up. Fantastic views though. I’m on a small saddle between Snowdon and you can see the train tracks as it heads up towards the summit. The wind’s getting up. So it’s a good job I didn’t decide to do Crib Goch. Lazy buggers! Ooh, I got a mouth full of smoke then. Inside the new building on top and wow, how crowded is it? There’s a lot of people on top today. All getting lunch and having drinks and stuff. That’s the building from the outside. Now, Snowdon’s summit lies up here. I’ve just got to climb it then think about joining the really long queue to get some hot chocolate. Now look how crowded it is. I wonder how many people actually walked there and how many got the train? So this is the top of Snowdon. Well I’m on my way down and as is always the case the cloud’s lifted you can now see Snowdon. You can just see where the train is. I can just see people on top. There, just. I’m pretty much flying down, though I have to be careful on these steep bits. There’s lots of scree and stuff like that. Crib Goch seems to have opened up but there’s still quite strong wind. So I’m going to go down the Pyg Track. So it follows the same path as the Miners’ Track and just a short while down here it splits off. It doesn’t go down by the tarns it goes over the hill. I’m going down the Pyg Track and you can see they’re doing some maintenance on the trail because it’s used by so many people. They’ve had to helicopter in all these rocks to rebuild the path a little bit. Just makes you wonder about what impact people are having on the mountain. As it’s the most popular one in Britain and it’s so accessible with the train going up and fairly easy paths. When I was at the top just outside the café, about 50 foot down from it I saw a man speaking Welsh just take his coffee cup and just crumple it up and put it under a rock. He couldn’t even be bothered taking it down the mountain or taking it back to the café. It’s such a shame that as well as being a great mountain it encourages people who don’t really respect it to try and get up it. Well I’m almost back at Pen-y-pass in the Pass of Llanberis . The Pyg Track’s been a much shorter route. Though it is quite steep in places. But I’m almost back on the road. I survived and I’m back in my car, well, my rental car. I’ve got lots of sweat in my eyes and it is hurting. Just going to be a drive back now to Sheffield. About 2-3 hours. Hopefully just not much traffic. I’m back at work tomorrow so hopefully my legs won’t be all stiff. Okay, time to get going.