28 Oct 2013 - As Britain faces a severe storm with 90 mph winds, will we accomplish our final peak challenge? (this storm was judged to be within the top ten most severe storms to affect southern England in the autumn in the last 40 years)
Despite the dire weather forecast for the weekend, Aunty Angeline, ST and I bunked at my house overnight in preparation for our early morning dash to Wales. Although the weather looked rather promising as we set off at 6 am in the morning, we knew that dark clouds, wind and rain were forecasted for 1 pm that day. How accurate are the timings provided by the weatherman? Can we time it well enough to avoid the inevitable soaking?
Leaving Aunty Angeline at the base of the mountain with her Snowdon Mountain railway ticket in hand and brief information about what she can do with her
time, ST and I set off on the Llanberis path. There are a choice of
6 paths up Snowdon - the Snowdon Ranger path, Llanberis path, Miners path, Pyg track, Watkin path and Rhyd Ddu path. The initial plan was to take the Snowdon Ranger path which starts at the YHA Snowdon Ranger hostel where we were putting up the night. However, not wanting to take risk with the weather (and our poor navigational skills), we opted for the Llanberis path which is less steep albeit a slightly longer route. I have previously made my way up the Snowdon Ranger path with Keith on a fateful March morning just 3 years ago, and even then we got absolutely drenched. Back then, fueled with adrenaline, despite foolishly not being prepared with an Ordinance Survey map, we managed to make our way to the top of Snowdon's snowy peak and run down its slopes much to the amazement of fellow trekkers coming in the opposite direction.
Anyway, back to the Llanberis path story! Despite the path closely following the railway tracks, I found it to be a rather scenic route. You can judge that for yourself from the pictures in this blog.
ST had told me previously that once she gets the momentum going, she is rather reluctant to stop halfway through a trek. Armed with that piece of information, I waved her along each time she looked back to check that I was ok. About three quarters the way up, my body decided it needed a glucose top-up. Hence, I took the opportune moment of whipping out a banana as ST stopped for a photo shoot. It was rather amusing that she breathed a sigh of relief as she commented "I thought you didn't want a break till we got to the top!".
Aaaah, misunderstandings! That's what you get for assuming you know what the other person wants.
Not long after our short banana and cashew nut break, the wind picked up and the pitter pattering of rain drops started. With my relatively thick blue raincoat nicely strapped in by my backpack to 'protect' it from flapping around in the wind, we slowly made our way to the peak - momentarily freezing in position and crouching on the ground as the wind became unbearably strong. With ST clinging on to the trig point, my raincoat torn to shreds by the wind (making it look more like a Tarzan costume), I crawled on my hands and knees to the top as I braced the strong winds. We made it!! Just! Many after us had to turn back, and as we later found out, Aunty Angeline never made it to the top as the train services were suspended (to her delight, she got a full refund!). But we made it! Mission accomplished! The National Three Peaks in, erm, slightly over the initial 4 months deadline. (though this is to be blamed on our hectic working and social lives rather than a weakness in our stamina ;)
So, the question now is, what's next?.....................
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