Snowdon Horseshoe A La Mike

Definitely not a couple to do things the traditional ways Mike added his own personal twist onto the classic Snowdon horseshoe (Crib Goch, Garnedd Ugain, Snowdon, Lliwedd).

Just a fraction of the people that were on the mountain

Having started from our beloved viewpoint camp site we walked up the valley to the Pen Y Pass car park to meet Mike’s uncle, Richard and his kids who were doing Snowdon. We all walked along the Miners Track until me and Mike cut off up the slope to gain the ridge to Crib Goch. We climbed Crib Goch amongst quite a few people going up and down, it was a Saturday and a beautiful day so people were out in hordes not to mention there was some dog charity event going on as well as the rat race which itself brought 1500 people up Snowdon that day!(Mike’s friend Tom explained the route and it sounded horrendous don’t ever do it) Almost unimaginable isn’t it?

Once at the top and bored of seeing and hearing people everywhere we ditched the whole lot and walked down the north ridge of Crib Goch and down into Cwm Uchaf, crossing this we found the base of our intended route (that’s after I had to endure the smell of Mike’s sardines as we ate lunch). The climb we were going to do was Clogwyn Y Person Arete (moderate) and started just around the very identifiable Parson’s Nose.

It was quite a good scramble we kept losing each other as I skirted around to easier sections and Mike opted for the trickier bolder bits, the one time I did follow him we ended up on a tiny sloping ledge needing to do a little off-width climb to get to the next ledge. Mike loved it but me? Not so much having not really done anything off-width (a crack that is too wide for hand jamming needing one to use all of their limbs to jam in and shuffle your way up) I was a little nervous and the drop beneath us didn’t help therefore I wussed out and got the rope to secure me. It helped a lot however still found it pretty tricky I’ve definitely not elevated to Mike’s monkey climbing level yet, it may take a while.

After that effort it was easy peasy lemon squeasy clambering up and we eventually got to the top of Garnedd Ugain and from there a gentle walk around the ridge (dodging the many other people) up to Snowdon.

Unhappy face as this was the bold bit

We glided our way down the criss-crossing paths and headed for Lliwedd but no!!! Mike had other plans instead of walking up and over Lliwedd as was traditional neither of us could really be bothered so we opted for the short and pleasant scramble down Cribau ridge and back to the Miners Track with the sun still shining on our backs tempting us into the very blue water of the lake. But damn I knew how cold it would be so we resisted.

And so ended our escapades to Wales for the time being so we treated ourselves to a 5 star restaurant (MacDonalds) and drove back to Worcester to sleep in an actual bed for the first time in 4 days, it was heavenly!!!