Earlier in January I took a short break in North Wales and went up Snowdon.
Last time I went up Snowdon was 2014 in August and it was a little underwhelming from what I remember, apart from the congestion on the tourist Miner route the whole thing was a little too easy going. It left me wanting to go back and try a more challenging route and visit in winter when it will be more interesting with less people about. My initial plan was to go via the Crib Goch route but decided against it as there were a few of us in the group that weren’t that experienced or confident with scrambling, although there was no snow what so ever there was always a chance of some in winter.
After going through a few different routes I figured the best would be the Y Lliwedd route up and the Pyg Track down, in total it would work out surprisingly short at just under 8 miles in total. I mapped the route below, if anyone knows a better way of doing this please let me know in the comments. I can’t remember the name of the OS system that I used to use.
We set off early Tuesday morning from the Pen y Pass car park, the rain was persistent until about 10am. From the car park just head down the Miners path and follow until you get to the first lake and then take the path to the left. When on the ridge you can easily loose the path but just stay close to the ridge and keep following it, the visibility was terrible on the day we went and we lost the path on one occasion but soon found it again. You will eventually get to the junction and join into the Watkins Path, from here is pretty straight forward to the summit with a tricky climb up the shale but once you cover the shale climb you have got past the hardest parts and its all easy going from there.
We decided to come down the Pyg Track as light was getting low, its all easy going down from here especially after coming up the Watkins Path. Pictures aren’t that great as nothing really presented itself and the rain kept the camera in the dry bag the entire time.