Hike report - 2000

Having been to South Wales in 1999 it was now the turn of North Wales – which of course meant Snowdonia. And, unable to convince Peter to walk again, it was back to the 8 regular hikers.

It was also agreed that to celebrate the new millennium we would add an extra day to our weekend away.

So, for the first time ever, we arrived at our lodgings on the Thursday evening – the Ty-Gywn Hotel. Situated on the outskirts of Betws-y-Coed and providing a backdrop to the Waterloo Bridge it was in an excellent position.

It also had a bar and restaurant, so as residents we were able to get drinks upon arrival, despite being well after closing time.

Friday

The task we had set ourselves was to climb The Glyders – a serious day’s walking, that was more about the climb than the distance we expected to cover. Fortunately the weather was quite nice – cold but clear with little cloud. So, without much ado we drove out of town on the A5 towards the hills.

We parked at Pont Pen-y-benglog, located at the western edge of Llyn Ogwen.

We set off past Idwall Cottage, a Youth Hostel, and up the footpath towards Llyn Idwal. From there we followed the path to the west of the lake and then started a steady climb towards the Devil’s Kitchen.

There was snow from about 1000 ft and it got deeper the further we went, making the last part of our climb more difficult. Paths were invisible and so was the unevenness of the land, the result of which was much stumbling into drifts up to our waist and a real risk of us twisting an ankle (or worse).

Geoff had a slightly different view of the climb by saying:

‘It was OK going up but I wouldn’t have wanted to come down that way.’

Nevertheless we successfully negotiated this stretch passing Lyn y cwm to our right before reaching the summit – Glyder Fawr (Fawr meaning big) – at 999 meters the highest point we had reached on any Winter Hike in Britain.

Here we had our lunch. The water in Graham’s bottle had frozen and despite being surrounded by ice and snow there were some great views. Although still clear there were clouds down over Snowdon that gave us some concern.

Malcolm R also recalls the morning’s events:
‘This was the first time I had actually been to Snowdonia so I got quite excited as we started out and found snow on the ground as we steadily gained height.

There was a short scramble section and then proper, deep snow, so it felt like a real mountain expedition.’

After our short break we headed east along the ridge, first to Bwlch y Ddyd-Glyder and then onto Glyder Fach (Fach meaning little). The level of snow along this section and the 45-degree slope across which the very narrow path traversed caused some concern. Thoughts of an avalanche and the risk of us sliding down the steep slope resulted in us crossing in single file and without making much noise.

Near the summit of Glyder Fach is The Cantilever Stone, a famous piece of rock that is a popular tourist attraction and on which visitors like to climb and have their photograph taken.

Bearing in mind the amount of ice, Malcolm D and Graham both managed to climb the rock without sliding off. Alas there are no photos – the weather was so cold that nobody felt inclined to get a camera out.

After Glyder Fach and the Cantilever, we considered descending Bristley Ridge to the north but decided it was safer to keep on to the col above Cwn Tryfan. Crossing the head of Cwm Tryfan towards the col between Tryfan and Glyder Fach we had great difficulty getting through the deep snow – certainly well above the knees and no obvious path to follow. The wind was also picking up which caused the snow to blow up as spin drift and hit our faces as ice.

We were descending the path past Llyn Bochlwyd when it started getting dark and we had difficulty finding the path back to the car park. Geoff took the lead as he had a torch but somehow Brian managed to get separated. There was great concern all round but we were convinced that if he continue downhill he would, like us, eventually reach the road. This is of course what happened and it was a relief when we all met up at the car park.

The whole incident had also been made worse by the arrival of the local mountain rescue team. On our descent a helicopter with its searchlight had come over us and we thought they were looking for us. However, we later discovered that someone had reported hearing a whistle being blown and it needed to be checked out.

What a day it had been…. as supported by comments received from Geoff, Malcolm R and Graham:

‘In retrospect probably a route that we shouldn’t have done. Our equipment with just hiking boots wasn’t really adequate. Any worsening of the weather could have made navigation difficult and dangerous. As it was we were still up at about 600m and 30 minutes from the cars when it got dark. But it was a great experience – I had certainly not done something like that in genuine
winter conditions.’

‘Seeing the mountain rescue helicopter just underlined that we had been on a really challenging hike.’

‘It was the hardest day’s hiking I had ever done’

We arrived back at the hotel late, and ate there that evening.

Saturday

The hike we had planned for Saturday also involved a climb but was more straightforward and would cover about 10km (6 miles), slightly further than Friday.

Our target was Moel Siabod, which according to a leaflet we found at the B&B would take about 3 hours. We were therefore confident that we would actually get down before dark this time!

There was a short stop into town so some of us could buy stuff for lunch before heading out on the A5 again. We parked in a lay-by at Pont Cyfyng, having travelled about half the distance we drove on Friday.

We followed the footpath south-west aiming to the left of the summit. The initial section was fairly steep and after passing what looked like a deep lake we went through a quarrying area. Then as we approached Llyn y Foel the area became flat and boggy.

South of the lake we started to climb the ridge up to Moel Siabod – it was here that we stopped for lunch.

Climbing up to the summit was hard going as we kept slipping and sliding down on the snow and ice. In the end we decided to contour round the steep southern side of the mountain and follow a fence up from the south-west.

The summit was in cloud all day, but there were quite a few people up there.

Having achieved our goal we followed a path roughly down the ridge to the north-east, eventually rejoining the path we had used on our way up. We had obviously taken longer than hoped as it was now starting to get dark – but at least this time we had an easy route down to the cars.

At the bottom there was a café and although some of us fancied a cup of tea we decided to go straight back to the B&B. Apart from wanting to get back in the warm we were expecting visitors – Graham Hicks and Peter Cox.

As expected they had already turned up and were settled in comfy chairs in front of a nice open fire with evidence that they had already started to run up a bar bill. After changing into our casual clothes we joined them and spent the rest of the evening in the bar – eating, drinking and chatting.

Sunday

Following breakfast Graham and Peter departed – they were not to be persuaded to join us for our leisurely morning walk.

Having packed up the cars we left them in the car park and walked across the bridge to the start of the path that led into the wood. It was our intention to walk to the reservoir and then make our way back into town for lunch.

The path zigzagged its way south-west and then west until it met the eastern edge of the water.

Here we had a short break before following the path first to the north-west and then north and north-east until we met the main road.

It was then just a case of walking back towards the centre of town, where we found a pub.

Next to the pub was a branch of the Cotswold Outdoor Camping shop – mountain poles were beginning to become popular and we were outraged by how much they cost.

Overall it had been an exciting and challenging weekend and we were glad that we had added the extra day’s hiking.

Finally, there are a couple of other points worth noting:

• There had been some amusement at the fact that there was no space available on Graham’s piece of paper to note the names of the participants – it clearly wasn’t Y2K compliant.
• It must have been the only time that we did almost all our sleeping, eating and drinking in the same place.