Snowdon in the sunshine and moonlight
I had been booked to take four people up Snowdon as part of preparation for an ascent of Kilimanjaro, and so I drove to North Wales the evening before and camped at Dolgam campsite in Capel Curig. The meeting with the group was at 11.30am, so I had a leisurely morning of breakfast in Bewts-y-coed followed by a hobbit-style second breakfast in Capel Curig, after which I made my way to the meeting point at Pen-y-Pass.
On arriving at the pass, it was busy as usual and I waited for the group to arrive, watching all sorts of people start-up the tracks to Snowdon. I was met by one of the group members, who was having trouble parking, eventually one of the cars parked at the bottom of the hill down by the Pen-y-Gwryd, and the others went down to Nant peris. I walked up from Pen-y-Gwryd to the pass with two people and met the rest of the team at Pen-y-Pass.
We had a short briefing and equipment check, a few excess items were removed, but everybody had the essentials and we then began our trip up the Pyg track enjoying the sunshine and spectacular views.
We slowly climbed up to Bwlch y Moch where the path divides, one track heading up Crib Goch, the other crossing a fence and onward towards Snowdon. We had a brief break for photo’s and to watch people begin their ascent of Crib Goch, but were soon on our way again.
The pace was slow but steady and the crowds were thick with people passing on the way up, and people coming down, some looking quite fatigued. We soon turned a corner in the path and heard, and then saw, the rescue helicopter which landed on the shore of Glaslyn. This had the effect of stopping most of the people on the path, who now had their phones out filming, creating bottlenecks on the path slowing our progress even more.
With the helicopter now gone we approached the start of the miner’s track down to Glaslyn, where we came across a women being attended to after suffering a slip or a fall with a nasty head gash. I moved my group off to one side and offered to give them my group shelter, but someone else gave them his, as it was a company one and not a personal piece of equipment. I rejoined my group and we continued onwards, towards where the path has a large switchback, where the helicopter had returned to pick the casulty up, a busy day for mountain rescue, I thought to myself.
The cloud came in a little and as we arrived at Bwlch Glas it was now only a short way to the summit. We were now moving very slowly, but made it and the group were all very pleased, however the low cloud had spoilt a lot of the view.
There was now time for a few photo’s and some food before we began our trip down. It was at this point that we started to move really slowly, as one of the party was now very tired and every piece of broken ground was being negotiated very carefully.
As we approached the start of the miners track, the cloud cleared and we had truly stunning views as the sun was beginning set low in the sky. We slowly negotiated the descent down to Glaslyn and it was just beginning to get dark. With all the most difficult ground now covered, it was a slow gentle walk out via the miners track with our head torches on.
There were now no more crowds, just our small group walking alone in the dark. As we approached Llyn Llydaw, the moon began to rise in the sky and it was very bright. I believe it was the harvest moon, as this was a full moon close to the autumnal equinox. I switched my head torch off and turned around to look at the mountains behind us, in the moonlight it was a very memorable moment, you could see a few head torches on the paths above but they seemed lost in the vastness of the mountain.
With head torch back on, it was not long until we turned a corner and could now see Pen-y-pass illuminated slightly below us. Some members of the party were now quite weary, but the sight of the end spurred them on a little and we were soon standing in the car park. The group were very pleased with their day out, it was a great day, wonderful views, good company and stunning night-time views.