Snowdon Ascent

Yesterday there were ten of us who climbed Snowdon. Seven of us took the toughest route while three others took a walking path up to the summit. Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales and the tallest minus the Scottish Highlands. So it just so happens to be the busiest mountain in Britain according to some. The weather was near perfect so the paths were packed with people. It was a bit windy during some parts depending on the shelter of the mountains. There were steady streams up and down the mountain all day. We took the bus to LLanberis and then took another bus to the Pen Y Pass where we started out journey.
It began on a foot path that was pretty rocky but when the trail split into two different trails you could either continue on the foot path or go up and over a few other peaks. These peaks were more for people who had been "mountain walking" (according to outdoor pursuits standards) before. Of course we decided to do the tougher one! It was quite a bit of scrambling up to the peaks of the mountains where then it was climbing/walking along the top ridge of the mountains. When we say top, we mean it was about a couple feet wide with drop offs on both sides. Just to let you know how bad it was, in looking at different routes up Snowdon online, this is the one to have the most fatal accidents each year... (don't worry mothers, we all survived!) We kept moving pretty quickly as one of the Central students with us had to be back for a train to Manchester that night since he had to head back to the states the next day. We never really stopped for lunch but kept our stops short and snacked throughout the day.
After about 3 hours of walking/climbing/scrambling, we finally made it to the top of Snowdon. When I mentioned that it had been a bit windy in certain spots during the climb, it was a completely different story on the top of Snowdon. Since it is the highest point in Wales, there is nothing else protecting it from the wind so it was extremely windy! If you weren't careful, you could have been easily blown over with a big gust. You could really see for miles on the top though. It was a bit hazy though so we couldn't see Ireland. Knowing that we had to keep moving, we headed down the mountain on the foot path that goes back to Llanberis. It only took about 2 hours to go down but it was the windiest on this foot path! One student that was with us lost his glasses during one gust. They were taken right off his face. We looked for awhile to they could have flown anywhere, so it is a good thing we only have a few weeks left. We ended up meeting up with the three people that took the foot path originally and finished walking down with them. After a full 5 hours, we had completely climbed Snowdon.
We took the bus back to Bangor, got cleaned up, and helped Swaff get his things packed up and ready to leave. We walked down with him to the train station to see him off and in doing so, I found 40 pounds!! It was sitting right on the platform where the trains come. So between Derek and I, we have found 60 pounds and lots of odd change. :) Off course, being tired from a big day, nobody did much last night. I watched a movie with some girls and Derek puttered around and went to bed pretty early. All in all it was a great day. Climbing Snowdon was on our list of things to do before we left and now it is checked off. Still a few things left to do but we are thinking we will get most of them done! ~Anna