Sunday 17 May 2015

Every cloud has a silver lining..

...and despite the heavy cloud cover at the summit of Snowdon, the views were still something to behold.

Our climb up was via the Watkin Path which is one of the harder of the paths due it starting the closest to Sea level (around 1010 m).
The path starts in some beautiful woodland with fantastically vibrant colours and some lovely streams flowing through - perfect for a picnic if you don't fancy the full climb up :-)

Once we were out of the woods, the landscape opened up with Snowdon in front of you and the peak buried in the clouds looking very eerie, but spectacularly intimidating at the same time.

The early part of the walk was a walk through history with and one location passing a stunning waterfall was used in the film Carry on up the Khyber.

Just past this we came to an old house that used to belong to the South Snowdon Quarry Manager, and during WW2 soldiers used this (once abandoned) as target practice for D-Day......bullet holes are still very much visible.







Only a few hundred yards past the house was Gladstone Rock which was named after Prime Minister William Gladstone officially opened with path addressing a crowd of over 2000 in 1892 at the age of 83.

Shortly after this we arrived at the old Barracks of the Quarrymen, and from then on up it was a very steep climb up to a point where could get the last photos of what were some fascinating views over looking the basin of the Snowdon Horseshoe.  At the bottom of the basin is a lake called Llyn Glaslyn lake which is where, according to legend (and i'm sure Russ mentioned this last year, but i'll mention again) Bedivere carried King Arthur down from where he was shot with an arrow (Bwlch y Saethau) and has Bedivere passed Llyn Glaslyn he threw Excalibur into the lake......Apps are great :-)



Lake Llyn Glaslyn

From here on up it was the steepest and most challenging part of the climb, and it was very much scrambling up on your hands and knees, and loose rocks etc to contend with.  It was here we entered the clouds and our visibility was very limited in terms of viewing.  A shame but still what an amazing climb it had been so far.

We reached the Summit of Snowdon in 3 hours, and once up there, there was a sense of achievement and satisfaction..........a wee bit nippy mind.

After a spot of home made soup (Thank you Russ) and a breather, we started to descend back down via the Rhyd Ddu path.

The descent was a steadier than the climb, but it was after a good 300m that we started to get below the clouds again...and boy was it worth it.








To Conclude, today, despite lack of visibility at the summit was a thoroughly enjoyable day, with some incredible scenery and tremendous memories.  We hope again that you enjoy the photos and the post.

Cheers,

Andrew

4 comments:

  1. Some great pics there! Wow Andrew, your almost as bad as me dad when taking loads of pictures and wittering about them! Haha. Hope you all have a fab evening. Look forward to tomorrow's piccys :) xxx

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  2. Evening all, glad you're had a good day - enjoying your pics Andrew, I might have tidied the layout up a bit ;D Looking forward to tomorrow's instalment

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  3. Dawn, I did try but didn't want them all in single file. When you try to put them in a good order it is a pain. Sorry :-)

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  4. Lol, I love taking pics, esp with scenery like we have. 2 days and nearly 500 photos...... :-) Stunning part of the world. Xx

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