#pyg track

[nordicfolk]

On the walk up Snowdon on the miners track

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Crystal blue-heated shaped lake looking towards Snowdon from the Pyg Track, Wales.

Photo: Kris Williams

[luckystartarot-blog]

The view from the Pyg Track, Snowdon.

[smirnieoutdoors-blog]

Snowdon via PYG & Miners Track

Hills included on this walk: Snowdon - Yr Wyddfa (Hewitt) Date walked: 27/03/2010 Time taken: 5 Distance: 9 km Ascent: 550m It’s called the PYG track because it is a P.. 5.15 am the alarm goes off.  5.15.30 seconds and I’m seriously considering staying in bed; it’s been another exhausting week and I’m not feeling particularly motivated. It’s a strange situation going from someone who firmly believed mountains were to be admired from the nice flat shores of a lake or loch, not clambered all over.  From someone who scoffed at all the show offs in their branded gear with poles and backpacks, to someone who has fallen in love with the hills and just wants to be be up there on a ridge surveying all that’s to be seen.  The transition however is a hard one; I’m still very unfit, giving up smoking has helped but also made my craving for bad foods considerably worse.  I struggle to find the time and motivation to exercise in the gym during the week.  But I love the mountains, it’s where I want to be. So with all that swirling through my mind I set off for Pen-y-pass just after 6am, determined to make the most of the last day’s reasonably priced parking before the rates shoot up to a tenner a day.  £6 is a rip off but a price I’m happy to pay if it means not having to queue for three buses to fill before I can get back to another car park as experienced last summer. I walked the Miners track and Llanberis Path last year so today it’s the turn of the PYG track and I want to assess how it compares and which routes will be best for very tired legs when we do our Three Peaks Challenge. The gentle start to Miners Track has not prepared me for PYG and its instant ascent over rock steps.  Of course if I’d spent a little more time studying and taking in the map I’d have known.  Note to self – must to Navigation course as map reading skills are … well.. rudimentary. For me it’s a tough haul up to Bwlch y Moch, but I’m enjoying it.  The sun comes out, I chat with all sorts of folk as they pass me, including a group of ladies who are also in training for the Three Peaks.  I am reliably informed that it can be done in four hours and when I say it took me 7 ½ hours last time one of them asks whether I got lost… ooops!

PYG Track looking down to Pen-y-pass

The formidable Crib Goch

At Bwlch y Moch the path forks and the thin line to my right takes you up to the formidable crags of Crib Goch and on to Garnedd Ugain (1065m).  That is my ultimate dream, to conquer my fear of heights and be fit and agile enough to scramble along Crib Goch and the rest of the Snowdon Horseshoe, not to mention the north face of Ben Nevis..

The jagged ridge of Y Lliwedd on the south side of the Snowdon Horseshoe

Glaslyn from PYG track

Anyhow, back to the here and now on PYG.  The track contours the mountain for a couple of  kilometers, sometimes gravel underfoot, sometimes a wee scramble over rock, more a scralk than a proper scramble but being the novice I am I anchor myself on every hand hold I can.  Handy cairns help to guide me. The path begins to climb towards it’s junction with Miners Track, marked by a pointed rock.

As the tracks merge I see many a sweaty, exhausted face approaching me and I feel almost pleased that I’ve come a different way, forgetting just how tough the remainder of the track with it’s zig zags up to the Bwlch Glas ridge is, never mind the last kilometre or so up to the summit.  I’m having to stop more and more often, admittedly only for a short while and my breathing is so much better, however my legs are killing me and I’m beginning to feel tired, some steps are stumbled rather than walked. Strangely, I am loving the scralky bits (scramble + walk = scralk), my body and mind seem to be able to cope with them much better than the plodding sections.  Note to self – must spend more time in gym on stairmaster and leg press. (I HATE both!)

Glaslyn and Llyn Llydaw from the Zig Zags

As I reach the beginning of the zig zags I see snow on the path.  It looks manageable and I chat with some of my fellow walkers getting tips about how to manage the snow.  Off I set in slight trepidation.  The trepidation grows with every slip of my foot and when I realise the bits of path that aren’t under snow have a layer of slushy ice on them I really start to bottle it.  I’m over taken by a couple in their seventies and as I stop to let the some other pass me on their way down, I realise they are the ladies I was chatting with earlier and they are now returning from the summit.  Well, that combined with the fact that I’m obviously visibly petrified as a fellow walker offers me a hand and tells me there’s another section of icy snow further up is where I decide discretion is the better part of valour and I start heading back down.  It’s taken me three hours to get here. Coming back down through the snow is every bit as scary, just faster as I perfect the heel slide!

Cloud cover on Zig Zags - this is where I decided discretion was the better part of valour!

I head down via the Miners path as I decide that getting down those rocky steps on the first section of the PYG track when I’m feeling this tired is not a good move.  I really have forgotten how tough the Miners track is but surprise myself how relatively unperturbed I am by it though I’m certainly not making speedy progress. Finally I reach the disused miners cottages at Glaslyn and settle down for a well earned Mars bar and to play with my new point and shoot Fujifilm J28 finepix.  I have figured out how to set the timer – cue posey shots everywhere.

Me at Glaslyn feeling rather relieved!

From here the path becomes easier underfoot and my mind has opportunity to wander.  Physically I feel ok, my legs are tired and feel like they’re ceasing up slightly, as do my hips, and my feet are slightly sore, especially the outside of my right foot as I go over a bit on a rock. My  mind however is playing games with me and I am convincing myself that I bottled it, did not push myself hard enough, that if anything my fitness levels have gone backwards since last year and that I should go back to admiring the mountains from a lakeside.  I certainly haven’t got it in me to complete the Three Peaks in a mere 13 weeks.  Oh and I’m definitely not taking my friends up Snowdon in a fortnight as I don’t want to show myself up in front of them and they’re teenage son.  I don’t want to let the side down, this was all my idea but I can’t do it. Hmmmm – could someone please have a councillor, a sofa and a mug of hot chocolate ready when I eventually get to the car park please?

It takes me 2 hours 20 to get back to the car park, too much time for lonely thoughts however the whole thing was a learning curve, the biggest being I must stay true to what I set out to do which is to complete the Three Peaks in succession and not focus on completing it in 24 hours.  It was the time it was taking me today and my focus on that,  that made it so hard going for my mind in particular. Not every day is a good or easy day in the hills as I keep trying to tell others and actually I did do really well.  Achieving the Three Peaks is part of a much bigger and longer term dream of being able to scramble and reach over all fitness. I guess it’s all about contextualising and putting things in perspective.  I lost my perspective today, I feel like I gave up.  I know when I reflect on this that I just did the sensible thing within my capabilities and that every time I go up a hill or mountain my capabilities will grow but I can’t go from very overweight novice to lean, fit mountain goat in a matter of months. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one small step.  It’s taking that first step that counts. Final thought – if I had reached the summit, I probably would have completed the walk in 6 ½ hours, a whole hour less.  Only in my stubborn, expectant mind can that constitute a failure!

[smirnieoutdoors-blog]

Perspective = A OK!

It wasn't just me, Snowdon was somewhat 'interesting' a couple of weekends ago despite the almost balmy conditions at the start, it did get rather nasty.  Looking at this video I happened across, taken the same weekend, I am finally ready to concede that I did not whoose out.... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI-pkFwd1L4;rel=0&w=425&h=350] Hehe... it was ehm, scary!!!!!

[merchanttravell1-blog]

snowdonia

Snowdonia our first attempt and soon to go back up thereWe arrived struggling for parking so we tried and tried by the time we had found a parking space we was atleast 2 miles out from our starting point we thought we were due a warm, up but look would have it a bus was chugging up behind the 100s and 100s of endurance bikers. the participants myself on the right and cousin left As we began the…

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[waleswl]

Adrenaline Rush

-July 10 

There's been a different tone to my travels both yesterday and today. I've still been learning, but it's taken an introspective turn. Yesterday our schedule read "Outdoor Pursuits." You may be wondering already what that entails, well, so did I, but we never got an answer. Tecwyn just told us to wear something that could get wet and bring an extra change of clothes and a towel. So I packed this and that to cover my bases because I did not want to go unprepared and it's a good thing that I did. Once Sallie, our guide, picked us up and took us to the center's base, she said that we were going to go coasteering. Come again? She got us fitted with wetsuits, windbreakers, and life vests and then we headed to Anglesey, the island off the northwest shore of Wales. Apparently, coasteering is climbing the cliffs right next to the sea and picking a way along them. So, with nervous excitement we began our expedition, but once our feet got soaked and Callie and Anna fell in, the fun really began. It was incredible! 

We went through a cavern that looped through the cliffs and swam into a dark tunnel. Then, to finish it off we cliff jumped! Pumping with adrenaline, I scrambled up to a ledge hanging over the water and leaped off. Time slowed as I hung in the air for a few moments and then smashed into the salty water. As I climbed back onto the cliffs, I shivered from a mix of adrenaline and the freezing water. When we finally headed back we passed some jellyfish and I had a "wow" moment. That's not something you see in South Dakota. It was so extraordinary to go coasteering and I think it really brought us together as a group. It is definitely something that I won't forget, but that is only the beginning; I haven't even mentioned my endeavors today. In a nutshell, I climbed Mt. Snowdon, but of course there's more to the story.... 

To reach my trail on Snowdon, I needed to take a bus to a place called Llanberis and then grab another one to Pen-y-Pass. Easy right? Well... I had a bit of a rocky start right away because I haven’t navigated through public buses before. Aside from a mini heart attack when I thought I missed my bus and a creeping nervousness that I wouldn’t get off at the right stop, it went perfectly. I arrived at Pen-y-Pass and began my ascent of Pyg Track at 10:30am. Since I was alone, I set a steady pace and passed quite a few people. I talked with an older gentleman on the trail for a little bit and discovered that he was from Singapore. He told me that its flat where he’s from and I let him know that he was speaking to someone from the “Great Plains.” I eventually lost him behind me as I continued hiking. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. I was hiking up the side of a large valley that was 360º of mountains with a lake at the bottom.

Aside from greeting passing hikers, I didn’t talk on the way up. It was very peaceful and it let me just take in the beauty around me. It was an amazing feeling to realize that there are more places in the world like this that I haven’t explored. The world we live in is enormous and yet we only see just a fraction of it. I felt so small with these enormous mountains towering around me and I could just barely make out the specks of other hikers who were at the top.

When I reached the final leg up to the peak I had to weave through the masses of other hikers lingering on the path. With a hard final push at noon, I broke over the crest and was greeted with an unobstructed view of the land  (well, aside from other hikers). There was a crowded pedestal at the top the made the “official peak” and I waited for my turn on it. After taking a ton of pictures, I turned around to see the man from Singapore that I had passed at the beginning. We took turns taking each other’s picture at the top and then I made my way down to have lunch. Some gusty seagulls gave me a greedy eye as I munched on my food and took in the view. Once I was finished I made my way back to the paths going down and took one directly to Llanberis. Thankfully it was much easier and I saved a little money and by-passed the bus from Pen-y-Pass. I eventually made it to the bottom and, with much more confidence, hopped on the bus back to Bangor.

It really has been an incredible two days that were starkly different. Basically, I’ve now been to both the top and bottom of Wales. I’ve never really considered myself an outdoor enthusiast, but that may soon change. Experiencing nature in its raw form (okay, the paths were man-made) brings with it feelings of exhilaration and respect for something that is much larger than you and I.