Another weekend another long couple of days training. I’m getting pretty tired now and I’m getting a few nigly injuries (mainly sore,knees, etc.) but I’m hoping that the miles will help in the long run.
This weekend was the weekend we’d put aside for me and Alex to train together. So we had two full days in the hills of Snowdonia. First walk was Glyder’s. I was hoping to get multiple peaks in for this to get a real sense of the distance we’re going to have to cover. Unfortunately Fester struggled to keep up. Still we made the most of the day by diverting from the fast way up Glyder Fach to doing the excellent Grade II scramble Bristly Ridge:
After Steph and Fester headed home and left me an Alex to our own devices. After a quick bite to eat in Betwy-y-coed we headed to our chosen wild camp of the night, Cwm Glas Mawr, high above the pass of Llanberis.
We set up our tent and settled into a hopefully good nights rest. It turns out though I’d made a mistake. I’d stupidly chosen our camping area based on the view, not the shelter it gave. I’d forgotten that the forecast was for 45mph winds that night. We were awoken in the middle of the night by the strong winds buffeting the tent. After quite some time trying to ignore this and sleep though it anyway, something made a loud bang…..
I threw on some clothes and went outside into the pitch black to inspect the damage. The good news was, the the tent wasn’t about the collapse (I didn’t much fancy the walk down in the pitch black). The bad news was that one of the tent poles had snapped at one end.
I was wary of how much more of this battering the tent could take so I did a quick reccy of the valley. I managed to find a more shelterred spot behind a large bolder which would hopefully protect us from the worst of the wind. So my and Alex bundled all our stuff into the tent, sealed it all up, pulled out all the pegs and carried it in the pitch black to the shelltered area. We quickly pegged it out and climbing back in.
We were lucky TBH. If a the pole had snapped higher up or it had been raining or really cold we would of been in trouble. As it was we could just see it out and get some kip.
Because of all the late night excitement we hadn’t had much sleep the next morning , so rather than waking at the crack of dawn as I’d expected we woke up about 9am. So we had to get a move on.
After hastily packing the tent , we marched down back to the car. Quick shopping trip to Llanberis and we were off again. this time to Crib Coch/Snowdon.
We parked the car down in the Llanberis pass and headed up Snowdon. The plan was to do the whole Snowdon Horseshoe. We were both pretty tied that day though, after the previous days exercise and the restless night. By the time we got to Crib Coch proper we were dead tired.
Crib Coch is a wonderful scramble though! It’s easily one of the best Grade I’s in the country. The weather wasn’t great, but this had the advantage of keeping the crowds at bay! So we virtually had (minus a few people down climbing because they’d become scared) the place to ourselves
Refreshed by this amazing ridge we moved quite well for the next couple of hours. I dragged Alex up the “more interesting” bits to make it a bit more fun! By the time we got to the top of Snowdon though, the weather had taken a turn for the worse! It was throwing it down, it was cold and it was windy.
I don’t normally stop much on the top of Snowdon (it’s always so busy) but this time we popped into the cafe for a break for the weather and some hot food.
With the weather not getting any worse we decided to head down the relatively easy PYG track. Several hours later and totally exhausted we rocked back up to Alex’s car.
I think this particular day has shown me how much harder the 15 peaks is compared to the 3 peaks. I came out of the 3 peaks feeling revitalised and like this would be a breeze. I came out of this weekend feeling like it’s going to be harder than I’d expected. The problem is the speed that you can move on these hard peaks is very limited. Where as on the 3 peaks you can easily keep a steady 5km/h your lucky if you can get 2km/h in Snowdonia. That 2km/h is sooo much more exhausting too.
A couple of days off now for me. Give me knees time to heal and get some calories back into my system…maybe a quick peak on Mon?? 🙂
The welsh 15 peaks challenge 