Yr Wyddfa

The Full Majesty

After a short night spent at Liverpool Youth Hostel (following a beer in town after my late arrival and a very early morning call from Dave who, knowing well my predilection for leaving everything to the last minute, was keen to get us to Lime Street Station in good time), we headed to North Wales on the train, more specifically to a little place called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, where he had left his rental car with some friends. Ever since I got my first Guinness Book of Records as a young boy I had wanted to alight the train here and stand on the platform before this sign. It is almost as long as the platform itself. It was only a little two carriage train but the station is so small they were only able to open the middle doors to let people out.

Dave had cautioned me (again knowing my predilections well) that he wanted a run rather than a scrambling expedition so Crib Goch had to be abandoned in favour of a run up Snowdon by the Llanberis path. It was great to be running alongside my old mucker again. Before he married a Kiwi and settled in New Zealand we used to run hundreds of miles together each year training for and competing in ultra-distance events. We have some great stories from that time and it always fun to relive a few of them when we get together.

After an easy start to the run, chatting away, the pace started to pick up a bit as we got higher. That old competitive spirit kicked in somehow! Once past the finger stone featured here, sensing that I was struggling a bit, the devil dug in deeper and really inflicted some burn in my legs on the final stretch to the summit. Much to my chagrin, he gave me a good stuffing in the last few hundred yards. I suspect it was revenge for standing him up for a better offer the previous night! I'm using my cold as an excuse.

Despite the fact that you can catch a train to the top, Snowdon (or Yr Wyddfa as it should properly be called in the native Welsh) is a truly majestic mountain. It has a complex and dramatic topography with many ascent routes, all of a very different character. To appease Dave, whose feet are too big to be a natural mountain goat, I led us back to Llanberis via Moel Cynghorion, Foel-goch, Foel-gron and Moel Eilio, which after the first steep descent offers the most wonderful running, virtually all on grass. There was a time when I could run all day over this kind of terrain, but not any more. Compounded by having only eaten a small bowl of porridge and a custard tart in the previous 24 hours (schoolboy error of putting talking before eating!), I simply ran out of fuel on the reascents to the various subsidiary summits on the ridge. I got Dave to take a picture of me at each stile just so I could rest the muscles for a few seconds. On the final climb to the top of Moel Eilio (offering this amazing retrospective of our route) I was barely able to raise a jog ... but this bit of mickey taking was a bit much I thought!

From there it was all downhill back to Llanberis. I can't remember the last time I've ever craved food so much. Has a banana and a packet of raisins ever tasted so good? It's wonderful to eat when you are properly hungry. It's something we don't experience too often these days. It was then off to Bangor for me to say my goodbyes for another year and catch the train home. Sadly, work deadlines dictate that I have to work this weekend. Probably just as well I couldn't stay because I would have been fit for nothing after this. A bit over an hour to the summit and a bit less than three hours for the whole circuit, so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself!