The Llanberis Path up Mount Snowdon.
We had a lovely day, although not quite as planned – although if it we had planned, it would have gone as planned. That is, I didn’t plan carefully enough, but things worked out pretty well.
The day started off with breakfast. I’m not a breakfast person, but Tom (like most people) is, and here they serve a large Welsh breakfast, which as far as I can tell is exactly the same as an English breakfast, with the addition of black pudding (or black sausage). which is usually pork blood and fat plus a grain to bind it, like oatmeal or barley. I’ve never actually eaten any, so I shouldn’t judge, but although high in iron and protein (and salt and fat), it doesn’t sound appetizing (and that’s an understatement). Eggs, bacon, sausage, fried tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, and, in this case, black pudding.
I spoke to the manager/owner, who is there in the mornings (and I think is the cook), who was avery nice guy with a great Welsh accent, and he’ll put a blowup bed in the room for tonight.
After breakfast, served from 8-9 (this is outdoor country; no languishing around having breakfast until 10), we planned to get tickets for the Mountain Railway, which goes to the summit of Mount Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) at 3,560 feet. Bev, Kaye, and I took this in 1991, the last time I was here, and it was quite a lovely trip to the summit, which was cold, windy, and barren. But, and here’s where the planning (or lack of) came into play. I don’t know why, but I didn’t anticipate or even think about tickets being sold out, which they were, for the next week. Bah! Now what?
We walked to the station, about 15 minutes away near Lake Padarn, hoping to maybe catch a cancellation, of which there were none, and learned the only other way up is to hike… which we did. Well, half way. Actually, this turned out to be at least as good, if not better. I’m sorry Tom didn’t get to experience the small train and the journey to the top, but instead we really enjoyed the hike and the exercise, and the views that we might not have otherwise experienced. We felt very good about this alternative, which was definitely unexpected. We went half way only because the full hike is about 5 miles and takes a minimum of 3½ to 4 hours one way, so between 6-8 hours round trip. That’s a commitment. Although the hike is considered the easiest of the mountain hikes in the area, it is nevertheless considered a strenuous hike, becoming even more so after the halfway point.
So, we set out for the LLanberis Path, which is the hiking trail to the summit, and asking a local if this was the trail, he pointed and said 5 miles, and just follow the crowd. Lots of people, young and old, friends and couples, whole families, people walking dogs, visitors from all over the world, trekking up the mountain. Lots of us! Some were even running the path (although mostly down).
The first section, which is paved, and is actually not the Llanberis Path but leads to it, was very steep and itself a workout, and is actually one of the steepest parts of the hike, but, even so, once on the path it goes steadily upwards, and never stops going upwards, sometimes quite steeply, and is a pure mountain path, mostly rock, stone, and slate, cutting through the Snowdonia mountain range on its way to the summit of Yr Wyddfa.
It was a great hike, with good weather, that sometimes got a little cool (it is very cool at the top, as I recall). When we reached the halfway point after about 90 minutes, at just about 2½ miles, where there is a small refreshment building (but no toilets!), we learned that depending on our pace so far the time to the summit from here was double the time it had already taken us, plus an additional 30 or 45 minutes. So, at the pace we were walking, around another two hours, for a total of 4 or 4½ hours, plus the time it takes to hike back down, another 2½-3 hours. That’s a long day. We also learned that the path gets tougher, with steeper and more more difficult sections, especially on the last stretch to the summit. We would like to have gone all the way, and would have continued but for the time involved. Both Tom and I realized that, although we don’t experience FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), we do experience FIOT (Feeling I Ought To) that drives us. I definitely felt I ought to hike all the way, and that was certainly my experience and drove some of my walks and steep hill and mountain climbs in Japan and Vietnam.
Instead, we relaxed for a while at the halfway house, at about 1,600 feet, where I enjoyed a n orange “calippo” ice lolly (popsicle), which was a wonderful find for me as it was almost exactly the same as the frozen Jubbly I and every other school kid in the 1950s and early 60s sucked on while walking home from school in the warm weather. Juicy and delicious, and quite thirst quenching. Yum. I also had some Jelly Babies(another childhood candy treat)!
Before we headed back down, I asked the women staffing the halfway house how she got up there each day. That’s a long hike up and down to take every day. There is a work run of the mountain train that stops up the hill near the building (still a bit if a hike), and that’s how they do it.
So, down we went. After a short while, we heard high pitched whistling and yelling from high in the hills about us, and saw sheep, and there are lots and lots of sheep, running across the ridge and down the mountain, and realized we were witness to a shepherd high in the hills instructing his two sheep dogs (which I could distantly make out among the running sheep) as they corralled the sheep and drove them down the mountain to where the shepherd wanted them. Quite the scene to see and hear.
Getting down,although still somewhat tricky because of the loose rock and stones and the continual decline, but it took only about an hour-plus, and we arrived back in town around 2 pm. Tom enjoyed another of those hard ciders, and I had just had to have some chips, although I wasn’t hungry. One of the great British pleasures is walking and eating a bag of chip shop chips. We walked around town a little more before heading back to the hotel, after about seven miles of walking today (five of which were on the mountain). Then, we took a drive through the surrounding area.
We drove through the Llanberis Pass, which cuts through the Snowdonia range, which was really beautiful, but there is absolutely no way to stop to enjoy the views or take photos. It’s hard to even imagine walking it as there seems little room on the side of the winding and curving mountain road, which is magnificent. There are no pull over points anywhere along the road, for either viewing or in case of a breakdown, although there are a few pull in spots nearby, as you near the entry and exit points to the Pass, but those held few vehicles and were almost always already full. So, a wonderful and exhilarating drive, but with no photos. We did drive further than the pass through other beautiful areas, but again most of the few pull over spots were filed, both as we drove out and again as we returned to town taking the same route (I think the only route).
A couple of the roads Google Maps directed me to I simply refused to take. Not only were they barely one car’s width, but had no pull ins of any kind in the event a vehicle is coming the other way, in which case it means reversing until you do find an area to pull slightly over. I did take one, and quickly changed my mind. Talk about local roads!
We returned to the hotel, rested (I blogged), and headed out for dinner around 7, and headed straight for the Y Gwynedd Pub where we ate last night, with pictures of shepherd’s pie (lamb) or cottage pie (beef) dancing in our heads. But, it’s Sunday and they have a large Sunday roast lunch that lasts well into the afternoon, and when we were arrived we were sadly informed they were out of food. Out of food! Wow. Never heard of that.
We actually had difficulty finding another place to eat that seemed to rival the menu of the Y Gwynedd, or even come close, including Pete’s Eats which we thought we’d try but which had a mediocre menu, and certainly no local or traditional food. We settled for another pub in town, and had meat pies, which were tasty but nothing to write home about, and that was true of the pub itself and its ambiance. So dinner was, well, just a meal.
Back to the hotel, where we hung out for a while before hitting the sack, and a blowup bed awaited me. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor at all, but it nice to have something a little more padded under me, but the blow up bed was fine, although it turned out to be a bit like a water bed, all wibbly-wobbly, but I slept fine… I would’ve preferred sleeping on a pad on the floor, though (much like the ryokans in Japan, actually).
Tomorrow, we head to the Lake District for two nights, passing through Liverpool on the way.