Snowdon – I have written about climbing Snowdon’s various paths, some from other’s accounts. This week I finally walked the Miners’ Track myself. Snowdon is the highest mountain in the British Isles outside the Highlands (and one of only 34 ‘Furth Munros‘, which is to say mountains of the British Isles which would be counted as Munros as exceeding 3,000 feet had they not had the misfortune to lie outside Scotland).
I first looked down from the summit over thirty years ago (having come up the Llanberis Path) and saw an intriguing path snaking over Llyn Llydaw. It took me until this week actually to walk it, as I was in Snowdonia for a few days.
From the bleak, bustling bus-hub of Pen-y-Pass, I headed off on a broad, well-made path to Llyn Llydaw, where the path crosses a causeway. (I seem to remember seeing stepping stones all those years ago – I may be mistaken.) The lake water was very low – the dry, dry summer has shrunk it back. Around the shore of the lake, there comes the first real climb, up to Glaslyn, a smaller lake (but the source of the River Glaslyn that flows down through Llyn Llydaw to a string of pretty lakes on the south side of Snowdon, and to the sea at Porthmadog).
The cloud had descended, and visibility was very poor. The far side of the little lake was invisible. The path followed around the shore of Glaslyn and stopped. I knew there was a heavy climb ahead, up to the high ridge, where it meets the Pyg Track. I think I missed the track I was meant to follow up, and went further along the shore, but in no place could I find a beaten track. (I have since read walkers’ reports which tell me it is there – but in the cloud I possibly missed it.)
I climbed, on the track that appeared. I hate scree slopes and this was a bad one. Another pair of climbers were ahead of me and must have found their footing. I climbed on such solid ground as I could, partly in a trickling stream bed, which had cleared the stones. I could do it only because I had excellent boots and long experience. The jaunty families I had seen bouncing along the track before were stuck at the bottom.
I climbed, hands and knees, up. Others had come that way – on occasion I saw discarded a crisp packet or beer can or similar. (How do walkers do that? We do not have the death penalty for littering in a national park, but I would have some sympathy if it were proposed.) Did I mention that I hate scree slopes?
Eventually I reached the upper path, meeting the Pyg Track, which is well defined, by the many walkers on it as well as by the path itself. It is still a climb though, if not as vertical as the Miners’ Track section I had just done, and on until the summit ridge, where all paths converge.
The summit was packed, and cold and wet and with cutting winds. After patting the summit, I sheltered in the café, Hafod Eyri, standing incongruously at the top of the mountain, wondering why had carried my lunch up when they had soup and rolls.
I had done the Miners’ Track at last.
The weather being as it was, with little visibility in the cloud, I abandoned the plan of trying to find the Pyg Track, and I came down the Llanberis Path – one you can practically run. In Llanberis the sun was out and the lake glistening and blue and filled with happy family voices. What a difference three and as half thousand feet make.
See also
- Snowdon – the main paths to the summit
- The Llanberis Path
- The Miners’ Track and the Pyg Track
- The Rhyd Ddu Path
- The Snowdon Ranger Path
- The Watkin Path
For now, I have provided a map below showing the main routes.
Maps
The best maps for Snowdon are of course the Ordnance Survey maps; the ‘Explorer’ at 1:25 000 and the ‘Landranger’ at 1:50 000: