Snowdonia - A Snowdon Epic 12/05/2012

Distance - 17miles 

Ascent - 9000 feet

Time - 14hr 15min

Route - Pen-y-Pass - Crib Goch - Garnedd Ugain - Snowdon - Clogwyn Station - Nant Peris - Elidir Fawr - Y Garn - Glyder Fawr - Glyder Fach - Tryfan - Llyn Ogwen

Map of the route

At 3.30am we arrived at the Pen -y - Pass and reluctantly paid the £10 to park the car for the day as we didn’t want to add any more miles on to a big day. We started making the ascent of Crib Coch in the dark hoping to get to the summit for sun rise as the weather forecast had gave 100% chance of clear summits how wrong they were.

Having my dog with me made the ascent of Crib Goch good fun and with a little  pulling and pushing we got her up without much trouble. As we got close to the summit the weather closed in so we never got the sunrise we were hoping for. We made our way across the ridge without any trouble and to be honest it was a lot easier than people made out it was going to be, even one of the lads said he would happily take his dog over next time. We avoid two of the pinnacles but there is no way around the third so I had no choice but to go over this one on the bit my dog couldn’t jump up I had to pull her up but it didn’t seem to be bothering her. As long as you dog is used to these kinds of conditions I would give it a go as my dog’s tail never stopped wagging.

Quickly the summits of Garnedd Ugain and Snowdon came as there was no point waiting around with no views to look at we made our way to Clogwyn Station where we would leave the path and look for a good place to start descending to Nant Peris. We eventually found a place that looked good to get down. It was going well only the boggy ground to complain about but the final part became a bit tricky with some big drops. Descending the final drop I lost my footing and slipped and fell but luckily Warren was in front and stopped me from going over the edge, which I was very grateful for.

The summits started to clear as we reached the car park in Nant Peris where we stopped for a well-deserved brake. From here Elidir Fawr looked very steep and the summit looked a long way away. After 10 minutes we were ready to start making the long ascent, the first field we came to had a horse in. We laughed and joked if I was going to be scared of going through the field as I don’t like cows. I said I would be fine, as soon as we went through the gate the horse started to follow me and tried heading me of but the others made it go away but it followed us all the way to the end, luckily we had got over the fence when it started to go a little crazy jumping and kicking.

The ascent was torcher and felt like it was never going to end it had got to be the worst ascent I have ever done and is enough to put me off ever doing this walk again. It’s like climbing a big soggy green hill with nothing to look at. Eventually we made it to the summit with no one having a good word to say about the ascent and everyone else up there seemed to have the same feelings.

The views from here are fantastic we ticked a few more of the Welsh 3000’s summits off. This section of the walk is great with plenty to see but my main focus was on the summit of Tryfan and making the jump from Adam to Eve. I found the scramble up to this summit trickier with my dog then Crib Goch, we managed ok though. We had to wait to attempt the jump as there was a girl already up there but decided not to do it. Warren was up first after a minute thinking about it he did it and showing of he went there and back twice. I wasn’t going to be out done so up I went to give it a go and Dan managed to get a fantastic picture of me big thanks to him.

Just the long ascent down to Llyn Ogwen from the summit we headed NW where we had a great bit scrambling down to pick up the path that would take us back to the car. A fantastic day out in the mountains taking in some of the main areas in Snowdonia.

This is when we finally got back to the tent at 7.30pm after getting up at 2am and her face says it all.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL THE PICTURES