Weather Forecast - 60-70mph northerly winds, extensive wind chill; Snow and hail showers; Low cloud basing above 900m; -5 degrees centigrade at 900m; 50% chance of cloud free summit
Courtesy of MWIS
Today's route was nice and satisfying - despite the lack of Snowdon, after coming so close, but the ridge does do Moel Eilio, Foel Gron, Foel Goch and Moel Cynghorion, in that order :) Due to be a 17k route with 1.1k of height gain.
Disembarking off of the bus in Llanberis gave us a nice surprise before we had even set off. It had stopped raining! Must have been the first time since we had arrived in Wales! The first, and probably the most difficult task of the day was to navigate out of the town and onto the hill.
OS Explorer Maps are not the best for road navigation and it took several guesses to get the right road which led us to a track up out of the little Welsh village. Quite a steep incline led us to a style, which we used to cross into National Park land and continue upwards. Despite the wind, this certainly was not as bad as the weather forecast had..forecasted! Really did start to regret leaving my camera at the hostel today :/
In time, we made our way round to the bottom of the spur on which the path led us up. From here it was a very easy climb to the summit one of four for the day which had a dry stone shelter on it - ideal for cowering behind for a bit to eat (the wind was bitter up there - height of 726m)
From this point in the day (around 1200) you could have mistaken it for mid-spring if not summer. THE SUN CAME OUT :D :D IKR ;D Horrible not having a camera - especially when you can see more than 100m infront of your own face ;)
Taking a break from the route lets talk about this beautiful picture. Obviously, its a pretty standard ridge, and the route was from the back of this picture (Moel Eilio) and towards whoever took the photo, who is standing just below the summit of Foel Goch - seen in the foreground.
Just thought some clarification would be nice.
Now, the next couple of hours, our miserable-ness had been destroyed by the presence of the sun. It had granted us a spring in our step, turning our trudge into a hike :)
The uppy downyness of the ridge was just normal - fun even. Smiling and laughing at the occasional person falling over due to the gradient of the downhill - how walking was supposed to be. At last, by 1315 (our pace dramatically picked up due to the weather), we arrived in the saddle between Foel Goch and Moel Cynghorion.
We had planned on making a decision at this point, and bearing on mind on the time, we could definitely down after doing Moel Cynghorion. At this point, we thought it would be best to strip off some of our waterproofs (for the first time in nearly two days ;)). We did so and proceeded to continue along and up the ridge.
We had an amazing view of Snowdon and Crib Goch :) And our route was planned to go around the bowl between the two main tracks up to Snowdon. We descended back into the final saddle before the bowl and some snow set in very quickly! Thankfully, it passed reasonably quickly so we had a clear view again.
Unfortunately, this enabled us to see the large amount of scree that needed to be negotiated in order to get up to the corrie, let alone get around it. Instead, we made the sensible decision (considering we were all quite tired) to follow the obvious tourist track, back through the saddle after Foel Goch and down into Llandberis, where the bus was already waiting for us with delicious chocolate brownies - finally feeling that we had had a worthwhile day :D
Courtesy of MWIS
Today's route was nice and satisfying - despite the lack of Snowdon, after coming so close, but the ridge does do Moel Eilio, Foel Gron, Foel Goch and Moel Cynghorion, in that order :) Due to be a 17k route with 1.1k of height gain.
Disembarking off of the bus in Llanberis gave us a nice surprise before we had even set off. It had stopped raining! Must have been the first time since we had arrived in Wales! The first, and probably the most difficult task of the day was to navigate out of the town and onto the hill.
OS Explorer Maps are not the best for road navigation and it took several guesses to get the right road which led us to a track up out of the little Welsh village. Quite a steep incline led us to a style, which we used to cross into National Park land and continue upwards. Despite the wind, this certainly was not as bad as the weather forecast had..forecasted! Really did start to regret leaving my camera at the hostel today :/
In time, we made our way round to the bottom of the spur on which the path led us up. From here it was a very easy climb to the summit one of four for the day which had a dry stone shelter on it - ideal for cowering behind for a bit to eat (the wind was bitter up there - height of 726m)
From this point in the day (around 1200) you could have mistaken it for mid-spring if not summer. THE SUN CAME OUT :D :D IKR ;D Horrible not having a camera - especially when you can see more than 100m infront of your own face ;)
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| The ridge with only slightly bluer sky than today - thanks to this website |
Just thought some clarification would be nice.
Now, the next couple of hours, our miserable-ness had been destroyed by the presence of the sun. It had granted us a spring in our step, turning our trudge into a hike :)
The uppy downyness of the ridge was just normal - fun even. Smiling and laughing at the occasional person falling over due to the gradient of the downhill - how walking was supposed to be. At last, by 1315 (our pace dramatically picked up due to the weather), we arrived in the saddle between Foel Goch and Moel Cynghorion.
We had planned on making a decision at this point, and bearing on mind on the time, we could definitely down after doing Moel Cynghorion. At this point, we thought it would be best to strip off some of our waterproofs (for the first time in nearly two days ;)). We did so and proceeded to continue along and up the ridge.
We had an amazing view of Snowdon and Crib Goch :) And our route was planned to go around the bowl between the two main tracks up to Snowdon. We descended back into the final saddle before the bowl and some snow set in very quickly! Thankfully, it passed reasonably quickly so we had a clear view again.
Unfortunately, this enabled us to see the large amount of scree that needed to be negotiated in order to get up to the corrie, let alone get around it. Instead, we made the sensible decision (considering we were all quite tired) to follow the obvious tourist track, back through the saddle after Foel Goch and down into Llandberis, where the bus was already waiting for us with delicious chocolate brownies - finally feeling that we had had a worthwhile day :D
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