Sut mae, croeso I Gymru! Hello, welcome to Wales!

As I am a quite new blogger I thought I should post some past hikes I have done.
One of my favourite is certainly Snowdon in Wales. Since I joined the group of like-minded hikers I have also started to celebrate Public Holidays outside at the open, so last year along with the core group of the Challenge Hikers we decided to spend the New Year (2009) climbing Mount Snowdon.

We rented a cottage in Betws-y-Coed. It felt so well, far from the noices of the city, clean air, just surrounded by the Nature.

We opted to climb Snowdon on the 2nd of January as we needed some rest after the fatigues of New Year's celebrations. :) But as we didn't want to feel guilty of being too lazy and also wanted to make the most of it, we still went for a stroll in the countryside on the 1st...not without having filled our stomaches up with the famous Bryce's pancakes.
First time I've seen so much snow altogether.



So the big day arrived and we headed towards the starting point of the trek, the car park at Pen-y-pass at the top of the Llanberis Pass on A4086, while the thermometer of our car was displaying -7°C. and the colour of my hair can prove it!


The Pen-y-pass car park is the start of three popular routes up to Snowdon, namely the Pyg track, Miners track and the Crib Goch.

The Pyg track is a well laid path and well preserved which ascends along the top of the Llanberis Valley with an astonishing panoramic view of the vallay and heads towards the bulk of the Bwlch y Moch. The Pyg track continues its ascent of Snowdon's massif until it reaches a less defined path with sign posted to Crib Goch.


It's at this point that you need to decide whether the condition are ok and people that are with you can handle what's waiting ahead. If not, you can simply keep following the Pyg track up to the summit.

There is a smaller path that leads upwards for a steep ascent of Crib Goch. The path is at first well defined, however, the further you go the higher and steeper it gets and also less defined.
From here on there is no path, but a 1km long grade and 1 scramble.
Once you have proved to yourself your climbing skills, you will find a ledge at the end whose highest point is at 923m.
From here we went ahead towards the Garnedd Ugain, a wide ridge to the summit. Affter that we followed a path that led up to a short climb to the summit of Snowdon or yr Wyddfa as called by the locals.

And here is our Peter waving at us from the summit.

We descended following the path back down side of the railway track until we reached the Finger Stone at Bwlch Glas. This path leads down towards the blue waters of Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw in a zig zag way, which is slippery and contains large slabs.

By the time we went down the sun came out of course!