Copa'r Wyddfa - Yr ydych chwi, yma - Yn nes at y nefoedd.

What a day! 

I was up at 6.30 this morning, showered and then cooked a full Welsh to set us up for our ascent of Snowdon - the highest mountain in Wales. In fact there is no mountain in England that even comes close. Snowdon weighs in at a very respectable 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level and like most sizeable mountains has a number of paths which you can choose to climb - we decided on the Miners Path for the ascent and the Pyg Track for the descent, mainly because of their picturesque/dramatic scenery-although this of course is all down to personal opinion.

The weather looked pretty grim at 6.30, in fact it was lashing it down, although the BBC were fairly confident in their forecast that it would clear up in Snowdonia and give us a pretty good day, which it did. By the time we arrived at Pen y Pass at the start of the Miners path it was warm but overcast - perfect. 

The car park was a tenner - robbing ba*>#+€s!! But there you go, they have a captive audience. We had to wait for Jacko to put all his gear on, zip the bottoms onto his shorts because his legs were a bit cold, zip up his gilet, adjust his walking pole, re-lace his boots, adjust his rucksack.......wow!! Come back Holyoak all is forgiven!!

So off we went climbing gently away from Pen y Pass towards Llyn Teyrn, a small but beautiful lake about a mile or so along the track. 

A stones throw further on and we reached Llyn Llydaw, a much more impressive reservoir which still has the remains of old, disused mine works, copper mines in actual fact which were working at their peak in the early to mid 1800's - the causeway which you can see Tim walking across was completed in 1853 and was built to aid the horses pulling carts of copper ore. Our discussion as we walked around the reservoir acknowledged just how tough life must have been for these incredibly resilient people and just how lucky we all are with our relatively comfortable lives. You see, we do talk about things other than football and Carol Vorderman!!

So we left Llyn Llydaw behind and continued along the increasingly steep path to Glaslyn - which in English means the 'Blue Lake' and it really is, it's beautiful and lies at an astonishing 600 metres above sea level. An even more astonishing fact about Glaslyn is that it is the lake which both Welsh and English folklore identifies as home to the Lady of the Lake, the lake in which Bedivere reputedly threw King Arthur's sword Excalibur and where Arthur's body was later placed in a boat to be transported to Avalon. 

The climb up to the summit from Glaslyn is a real lung buster but we eventually reached the summit of Snowdon at about midday, not a bad time considering that we weren't rushing. 

The view is simply breathtaking. 

So following the usual summit photos etc, we decided, rather than simply head back down, we would carry on and climb the next summit to Snowdon, an almost equally impressive mountain called Carnedd Ugain which stands at only 20 metre less - 1065 metres ( 3,494 ft). And that's exactly what we did and although the climb wasn't particularly exciting, the views of Snowdon and surrounding country certainly were. 

And so, we came back down the fairly narrow ridge of Carnedd Ugain and turned left and southward down the Pyg track back towards Pen Y Pass. The weather had been kind, but very quickly it turned and with only 40 minutes to go until we got back to the car, we were hit by a really ferocious storm with thunder and worryingly overhead lightning, torrential rain, then hail and back to torrential rain again and it has remained that way for most of the afternoon - we've eaten dinner at the cottage watching the lightning outside the window.

So that's it, another fantastic day in Snowdonia. Tomorrow's plan is to take on three peaks, Moel Hebog, Moel Lefn and Moel yr Ogof, the highest standing at a very respectable 782 metres. All three climb out of the Beddgelert Forest and the latter is home to Owain Glyndwr's cave. Owain Glyndwr lived in the 14th century and was the last native Welshman to hold the title 'Tywysog Cymru' (the Prince of Wales). 

Thanks very much for following our adventures and I hope you enjoy the photos. 

Russ

P.S I forgot to mention, in case anyone was wondering what the title of this post actually means in English?