Snowdonia with the LDWA

I recently joined the Long Distance Walking Association (LDWA). I figured it was as good a way as any to get to know other walkers close by and now that John has moved all the way to Durham to escape my whinging maybe I might find someone else crazy enough to accompany me on my adventures. I was invited by the leader of my local group (Mike) to come along on their weekend in Snowdonia during the August bank holiday. Going away with 9 people I had never met before was a little daunting but I figured that by the laws of probability there was bound to be at least one person I liked, if if not I could always run home and never leave the house again. So on Friday afternoon of August Bank Holiday Damien dropped me off at a house in North Bromsgrove, as we were staying in a B&B I had decided on a 35litre backpack, taking basically what I had taken for for Offa's Dyke minus the tent, sleeping bag and mat. Plus some luxuries - a hairbrush, change of underwear and t-shirt for every day, binoculars and a bit of make-up. I had my food for the three lunches I would need in a stuff sack - trail mix, beef jerky, satsumas and kendal mint cake - so almost paleo! The others in the group were quite amazed at my lightweight packing, I think Mike was worried about my apparent lack of preparation, I am sure he was thinking of solutions for when I realised I didn't have enough stuff. The mood was jovial as we set off and I spent much of the journey getting to know the others a little better and sharing our basic life stories etc. By the end of the evening I had met everyone except Ruth who was only walking on the Saturday. They seemed a nice bunch, Mike was evidently in charge and I wasn't surprised to find that he is a teacher! There were 3 newbies including myself, Jonathan and Dave (who later became Bob to avoid confusion) Chris and Cathy were my fellow women, I was sharing a room with Cathy (I'm not sure what I did or said but she dreamt I was a zombie and spent the first night running away from me and screaming!). There was a lovely gentleman called Robin and, later in the evening David and Nick arrived, they confused me by having the wrong names, Dave looked like a Nick and vice versa - I had to concentrate hard on getting their names right all weekend! So that was it, 10 people and all seemed sane. (except me evidently - I had an undead aura about me...)

The whole group ready to set off up the Nantlle Ridge

After a fortifying breakfast and lots of coffee (I hadn't slept well and ended up pulling my mattress onto the floor at 4am as the bed was too soft - maybe I should have brought the sleeping mat after all!!) we gathered under low cloud at the car park at Rhyd Ddu ready for adventures over the Nantlle Ridge to Nebo. I had no idea how close we were to Snowdon, my knowledge of the area amounted to what could be written on a matchbox at the time. Luckily we had Mike, and he knew everything, I am taking a notepad next time! As we set off up to the first peak (Y Garn) we were treated to beautiful views back down the valley, the cloud still shrouded anything above 1700ft so we also had the luxury of not having to look at how much higher we still had to climb. After reaching the summit of Y Garn, we stopped and gazed at the view for a few seconds (we could see for metres!) before moving on to Drws Y Coed and Trum Y Ddysgl, this involved a fair bit of scrambling and ridge walking which was fun though I was glad I couldn't see down through the cloud. I remember nearly freezing to the spot on the ridge up to Hellvelyn a couple of years ago because I made the mistake of looking down! At some point we stopped for coffee, I only had water, it didn't cross my mind to bring a flask so Mike offered me a sip of his, which I promptly finished off, I am converted to coffee and plan to go and buy myself a flask. Too late for Mike though, I am surprised he spoke to me ever again. We lunched alongside a large group of Welsh walkers underneath the towering obelisk on Tal Y Mignedd, luckily Ruth is from the area, once they knew we had a welsh speaker they refrained from insulting us. The afternoon consisted of bagging Craig Cwm Silyn, Garnedd Goch and Craig Goch before descending to Nebo to await the slim chance of a man named Hugh picking us all up in a minibus to take us back to the cars at Rhyd Ddu. On Sunday morning we had a relaxed start, setting off straight from the B&B, no scary rides in minibuses today (Hugh had made good on his promise but had sent Michael Schumacher to pick us up instead). We walked the solitary Northern Rhinogs which are just two mountains: Rhinog Fawr and Rhinog Fach (translated as 'big rhinog' and 'little rhinog' respectively), in reality they are part of a range of peaks, I am not sure how many we did but it seemed a lot! It had started out raining so I put on all my wet weather gear stuff, after ten minutes it had cleared up but I didn't trust the clouds so I stayed wrapped up. I was glad of this when we reached the top, (after a repeat of the coffee drinking incident - Mike is just too kind) it was freezing!! The sun was shining and it appeared to be a gorgeous summer day, however the wind made it feel like the dead of winter. Jonathan had a gadget which measured the wind chill which I think was 3.5 degrees or there about, resulting in a 10degree overall temperature. Actually between the men they had gadgets for everything, we could have completed a total survey of the area and probably built a palace to live in had we wanted to...... Mike regaled us with more information about the area, including a village down by the old nuclear power plant where the residents are 'genetically challenged', apparently the group had stayed there one year and narrowly escaped being chopped up and eaten.

Wrapped up against the wind chill

Once we began the descent and were protected from the wind the rest of the day was delightful t-shirt weather, we passed some amazing rock formations apparently caused by glaciers or something, or most probably aliens. While passing some rocks Mike heard running water underneath and posed us a problem of obtaining some. After some discussion about the perfectly good stream we had just passed not really being there for the purpose of this challenge, Jonathan fastened some moss to the end of his long stick and lowered it through the gap, the water he retrieved was rather dirty but we decided that after filtering it through some material it would be more than adequate. Clever! I would have died of thirst myself wishing I'd brought a flask of coffee...... This prompted some discussion on survival and whether we could stay out there safely all night if the worst happened, which of course we could given all the gadgets carried, I am sure someone mentioned having a lightweight, fold-up 8 person tent in their pocket.....

Day 3 found us at the base of Snowdon, at sea level - none of this poncy starting at 1000ft for us! This was an exciting day for me and I was in a jubilant mood as we set off up the Rangers path, I have always wanted to climb Snowdon - my Dad took my older brother when he was 11 and I remember being upset that they thought 6 was too young to go. The weather was perfect and I felt recovered from the late night (living in a town has prevented me from being able to see anything but an orange haze in the sky but with the clear sky I saw proper stars, Jupiter and a faint shadow of the milky way for the first time in years so had stayed up late to gaze at the heavens). It was soon warm enough for me to test out the 'detachable leg' function on my walking trousers, which worked fine and were reasonably easy to re-attach later. Mike soon led us off the Rangers path to do some scrambling around the north face, this was much more interesting, we sat at the base gazing up at the intimidating rock face while Mike told us a story involving him attempting to climb the face with his friend Sandy in 1973 and getting stuck on a ledge near the top when night fell. Mountain rescue were called but apparently couldn't do anything due to 'health and safety' so they flew around in their helicopter and brought up a train with a torch on it which lit up the mountain and then waited until morning when Mike and Sandy completed their climb and were whisked away in a landranger away from all the press. While we listened to Mike's story we gazed down at a beautiful pool at the base of the face, it looked pretty inviting for a swim but no-one was brave enough...... I am sure it was very cold! We continued up the left of the north face, over the railway and onto the tourist track.

The North face and inviting pool behind me, I trudge up the hill.

We decided to stop for lunch on the edge overlooking the miners path, it was here that disaster struck when Robin placed his camera on the floor only for it to roll down and bounce over the side, nearly knocking people off the path before continuing to the depths below. This was a real blow for Robin, it was a good camera and he had taken some lovely photos, however he didn't let it get him down and was soon talking about the new model that had just been released, I felt quite humbled by his optimism.

The camera is down there somewhere

A short walk later we reached the incredibly crowded summit, I felt emotional to be finally standing there and spent a little time in quiet reflection before calling Dad and telling him I had made it and I bet I could have done it at age 6 too. So there. Then I got annoyed at the number of people wandering around in flip flops, one of which was overheard by Chris actually saying "well we may as well go to the visitors centre, there's not much else up here!" If I had heard that I would have immediately pushed them off the side. We took the gentle Rhd Ddu path down and went for a well earned pint of Guinness before setting off home tired but very happy.