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Day 29
I wandered out before breakfast to the shores of Llyn Cwellyn, its surface perfectly smooth, reflecting the steep slopes of Mynydd Mawr. Only a pair of mallard, paddling slowly in circles, rippled the mirror and set the mountain trembling as I reached for the camera.
I left the hostel at 9am having told the warden roughly what I intended to do and warned him not to alert the mountain rescue if I was not back before 9pm. He laughed and said that I could walk later with the splendid forecast and the moon nearly at the full. As I walked up the Snowdon Ranger track my mind went back nearly 44 years to my first ascent which was in fact my first ascent of any mountain unless you count Selworthy Beacon and Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor as mountains. This climb was done with my parents and my brother, all of them now dead, a fact which filtered a sombre note into my reflections.
When I reached the col above Cwm Brwynog I could see and hear the train puffing up the track from Llanberis and I thought that I could not resent the railway, although it would certainly not be possible to get planning permission for it today. I thought that perhaps when I am too old to walk I might come up here on the train looking out through a mist of tears at this beautiful mountain and recollecting the many times when I have walked and scrambled on its magnificent ridges. Perhaps there will be no tears but another moment of joy to be snatched from this lovely hill. Today the melancholy just brushed the edge of my thoughts, an indulgence to spice my underlying mood of deepest happiness.
The best moment on the Snowdon Ranger route is arrival at the col between Crib y Ddysgl and the highest top Yr Wyddfa which reveals a prospect which took my breath away just as surely as it did when I saw it for the first time at the age of thirteen. The ridges of the horseshoe, Crib Goch and Y Lliwedd, enfold the corrie lakes Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw with Snowdon summit towering above; surely a scene of mountain beauty to equal any in the world.
A couple met here had come halfway on the train, yet walking they had reached the top long before it. One other young man was on the summit already with a large camera, delighting in the superb clear conditions. I asked him to photograph me with my little camera as I felt that this high spot of my walk, quite literally, deserved recording. When he asked me where I had come from I replied 'Snowdon Ranger', being too modest to answer 'Neath'! It had taken me less than two hours of steady climbing with an almost empty rucksack to reach the summit from the hostel.
When I first did the Snowdon Horseshoe the accepted route to the next col was direct, an unpleasantly steep and loose descent. Later a path was constructed sloping up onto the south ridge below the summit. Now that path has reached very much the same state as the original direct route due to overuse and erosion. This was the only unpleasant section of the day, a necessary suffering to continue the pleasure.
I remembered that when we did the horseshoe in my youth the challenge was to keep as close as one dared to the vertical face on the left as one scrambled up Y Lliwedd. Although I did not want to get into any difficult situations I was certainly not in the mood today, with the light pack and perfect dry conditions, to seek out the paths which seem to have developed to avoid all the fun.
From the main top it is a very short descent and reascent to the east peak which seems almost as high. Here I had to pick my way through a large group of young people sprawling amongst the rocks. A third summit, Lliwedd Bach, is another of those totally insignificant oddities but as the ridge sweeps round in an arc here it gave good views back to the impressive cliffs on the north face of Y Lliwedd.
I now left the main and very obvious path to visit the unfrequented top of Gallt y Wenallt which lies right at the eastern end of the ridge and is usually known as the last nail of the horseshoe. Only the faintest signs of a track lead out to it. If this hill were anywhere else in Snowdonia it would be more visited perhaps for it drops away quite dramatically eastwards into the Gwynant valley of which it gives a splendid bird's eye view. By a quirk of history, probably influenced by the situation of the Pen y Pass hotel, it has been decreed that the Snowdon Horseshoe terminates on Y Lliwedd and few question the route or turn aside to wander further. Usually I have followed everybody else but I did enjoy this quiet and grassy interlude today.
I contemplated a descent to Cwm Dyli which would have given little more reascent but the route down looked uninviting, another reason for the unpopularity of this hill perhaps. So I wandered back along the ridge and rejoined the horseshoe path as far as the causeway over Llyn Llydaw. We once found it under water and had to divert round the rough shores of the lake but the water level was very low today. I expected a trackless ascent over steep grass to the pyg track. Steep it certainly was but there were definite signs of a track developing. I should not have expected otherwise on Britain's most popular mountain.
I had forgotten just how splendid a climb Crib Goch is. After the initial approach it is not in the least spoilt by erosion. On the contrary any loose rock which there may have been has long ago fallen off leaving marvellously sound solid rock to scramble on. After a few awkward moves, thoroughly enjoyable in these perfect dry conditions, there followed a long ascending arete of easy rock which I had forgotten completely, a magnificent prelude to the famous knife edge. I have never attempted to walk upright on the crest. I am very happy to resort to the soft option of using it as a handrail which still gives quite enough thrills and exhilarating sense of exposure for my taste.
I thought that I might have the ridge to myself because most people go round this way and do Crib Goch in the morning, however several parties were descending and I met three solo walkers just embarking on the horseshoe. It was about 4pm on a glorious, hot, dry, set fair afternoon with just the hint of a breeze so they had plenty of daylight to complete the circuit or perhaps they would linger in the beauty of the evening and finish by moonlight. They were all quite surprised when I told them that I had done the other half of the horseshoe in the morning and was returning to Snowdon Ranger hostel.
Once over the knife edge and the pinnacles I began to slow down. I stopped for a chat and a couple of photographs. I lingered up the next steep steps, savouring the feel of my fingers caressing the firm dry rock. Finally I sat down at the summit of Crib y Ddysgl and gazed for a long long time at the ridges of the horseshoe in the rich sunlight, already with a hint of evening glow in its radiance. A touch of melancholy, forgotten since this morning, crept back into my contemplation for I realised that even should I return to this place on another perfect day I might never quite recapture the significance of this moment, a marvellous climax to my walk, whatever might happen in the days ahead.
At last I turned away and went down for the insignificant outlier, Llechog. It was just as well perhaps that I was doing this top late in the day when the trains had stopped running and so was able to walk unchallenged beside the railway to the point where it had to be crossed to scramble up to this rocky summit which gives bird's eye views of the Llanberis pass. Walkers are discouraged from access not by conventional 'keep out' or 'tresspassers will be prosecuted' notices but by a disclaimer of responsibility for anybody bitten by snakes while walking on the railway!
From here the book was useful as it described the route back to Bwlch Cwm Brwynog using an old tramway and passing below the impressive cliffs of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu. It had occurred to me to return over Moel Cynghorion as I was well placed to traverse it from this col and it would save coming back here with the pack tomorrow. I decided to do it if I arrived at the col before 7pm. Well I got there at exactly seven. Up I went, a final hard slog of just over 500 feet to reach the grassy summit. I doubt whether it added much time at all to the day for the descent by the west ridge was quite delightful on easily graded soft grass, a treat for tired feet and a satisfying finish to a quite outstanding day.
I arrived back at the hostel at 8.15pm, too exhausted and too intoxicated with this wonderful day to write up its details in the log. I wrote only '...it will be hard to put into words the beauty of this perfect day. I remembered the female stone, Maen Llia, which I kissed on the third day of my walk. I thought that she had ignored my homage but now I know that she was saving up this very special day for me!' Superstition? Perhaps; but one must allow a touch of magic which spun out the 'moment of delight on Snowdon', which I had wished for in my prologue, into a long lingering lovely day of delight.
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