Well, on Sunday the 21st March, me and two friends from work successfully climbed Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales, at 1085m (3500ft (ish)). Three weeks later, we climbed Cadair Idris. With Snowdon, the journey was filled with much peril and adventure but we persevered and made it to the peak and then back to the car park in eight and a half hours. That’s more than a full working day. Hell, throw in the drive times and intial picking up of people it was more than 13 hours!
We made it up and down with no major problems, apart from a ridge near the top which was very narrow and flanked by steep, near vertical 1000ft drops. The weather was horrible, although initially sunny and clear, this became cloudy. Then overcast. Then rain. Then heavy rain. Then heavy, freezing rain. Combined with the Snow at the top, which in places was in excess of 8ft, this was the worst weather I had ever experienced. Below is a truncated video of the 13 minute Facebook one. Sorry for the crazy Aspect ratio, first iPhone video.
With Cadair Idris, it was completely different. The weather was sunny and clear all day. So much so that we burned ourselves. The climb was a lot easier, and the views, perfect. We got lost in Dolgellau for a short while, but made it to the Snowdonia National Park Car park for the Pony Path. On the way down, I broke the strap on my birthday watch when I fell and smashed the steel buckle to pieces between a rock and my wrist. Almost two weeks later, and the scratches the buckle left in my wrist are still present. Cadair Idris was particularly busy, so we stopped and waiting on a particularly comfortable piece of grass for people to overtake until we were relatively alone. We made it up and down inside six hours, but the weather was partly to blame of this; we weren’t exactly rushing up the mountain, and stopped several times to take in the view and the weather.
We will be climbing Glyder Fach in May; hopefully we can be photographed on the Cantilever Stone!
Cadair Idris was definitely the better mountain to climb. We will be retackling Snowdon’s other paths inevitably, including the notorious Watkin Path. There’s even been talk of learning to rock climb!
And now for the obligatory photo montage. Only the last two are from Snowdon. I didn’t want to break my camera with rain! Not that it matters much, but there’ll be a post on that in a few days…
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