Snowdon Mountain Hut

Ok that was a little bit of eventful weekend.. now all is fine - well except the bank balance.. i'll explain further in a moment..So as it came by the first myspace outing I had a hand in organising... ok alright yes i've met a few of you before.. but the first time the walking group I set up has met up.

The original plan was to drive up on Friday night, Chris and Richard had all ready got there by then.. but Matt thought his car a classic old tank of a volvo was going to breakdown (oh the irony) so he decided to wait till the next day and pick up a hire car and another passanger - natasha..

Myself and the jester, decided to leave in the morning. Monkey and penguin also hitched a lift... It was such a beautiful day as we journeyed up towards snowdonia.. blue skies everywhere.. building confidence that we may get some pretty decent weather... we decided to stop off at Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.. and stretch the lags, a comedy video was dispensed,

We passed some tame ducks and continued across the aqueduct which gave really good views of the valley..

After a short while we strolled back to the car.. and then the noises started..

Yes pulling back out onto the A5 - the car was not accelerating properly.. it was reving and mcnevving.. starting to get a little worried.. we managed to keep going and got to betws-y-coed where we stopped for some food and supplies.. Betws-y-coed has lost its appeal to me now.. maybe because i've stayed in many of the b&bs and drank and eat pretty much everywhere in the small town.. anyway back to the story.. well discussing with phil the odds about making it to the hut in the car or home.. we agreed that the hut was probably doable.. we managed about two miles out of betws and the car screamed to a halt.. not taking any more we were stuck on a rather steep hill and on a bend.. with little choice to get out and push.. i ordered my passenger to comply.. he did funny enough and i stayed sat in the car - aren't I a meanie. anyway phil uttering the words you can push and steer you git.. we pushed the car into a small forest commission car park..

as we informed everyone what happened.. and got the breakdown people out.. the guy turned up was very welsh.. the guy who turned up was character straight out of league of gentlemen or something - couldn't understand a word he said.. had half of his teeth missing.. but he was a lovely chap.. phil obviously taking in source material for his next sketch.. jokes aside - I was relieved my weekend wasn't a complete disaster as the breakdown geezer said he could recovery the clutch destroyed vehicle back to brum without me..

So what do we do now? Well we got a lift back to betws and went to the pub of course.. a few pints here and there - as phil and I chatted to this group of people from yorkshire.. they had three lovely dogs - who were quite friendly!! anyway mr butcher aka la wetboy was well on his way and showed up a few hours later with natasha and we made haste to the mountain hut.. grabbing some erm not so nice food on the way - steak pies better than the thai curries we finally caught up with chris and richard. Who probably thought we weren't going to show up at this point..

Matt gave richard a lift back to the hut as his legs were a little weary after the days walk he had done with chris.. oops the bag of wood I bought which sat on the back of matts hire car leaked - had as much water as wood in it and drenched the back seat of his car... oh dear..

Anyway after the food was eaten we made it back to the hut which was quite basic but cozy enough as richard had got a good fire going.. anyway at this point lots of silliness such as climbing up the ladder to the bunk beds upside down - which noone managed - but matt gave it a good go.. singing of various degrees of talent was heard.. some silliness about nuns and ninjas at one point i seem to recall.. you get the idea - whiskey and beer fueled...

We all managed to turn in about 2am.. making sure the alarms were set.. we got some sleep.. the lads in room 1 and the other two in the lovers warren next door.. The only stirrings in the night was erm one of our group not being very well and a chorus of snoring.. i didn't hear anything.. until monty python rang in the morning...

Jumping out of bed, looking out of the window.. honeymoon hangover period in full swing - i made some tea.. phil was beer banged destroyed and the others stirred into action.. after an hour or so we headed for the hills at about 9am.

We decided to walk up from Rhyd Du - and carry on east towards the bottom of the southern ridge up to snowdon.. some of us, actually probably us all - were feeling the ill effects from the night before.. but we struggled on - it was such a lovely morning - really fresh - really clear.. really crisp..



we stopped by some of the quarries on the way up the base of the ridge - where we had a little rest - and i decided to investigate this waterfall - that sorted my head out when is stuck it under there!! then after some mindless chucking of rocks into a quarry hole and some pistacho nuts we journeyed on to the base of the ridge.. at this point Phil and I remarked that we had been hear a year ago.. at the same point where you can look down into the valley where the watkin path is.. and remarked how lucky we were today with the weather!! we began the ascent up to snowdon now in earnest from 500m to 1085!! we went up along this beautiful ridge - you could see for miles..



you could make out holy island on the other side of anglesey clearly.. the deep blues of the sea.. and some mist clinging to a valley far to the east.. I also noticed the reflection of the clouds in the lakes below.. We managed to get to the crowded top - note this route is the 3rd hardest way up - but i'd guess most people at the top walked up either the miners track or the llanberis path - the easier routes up - there was very little wind - so a walk over crib goch would have been pretty amazing that day... anyway the first thing i noticed at the top was the cafe had been completely demolished.. no burgers for phil.. then there were loads of seagulls trying to pick up all the food bits left over from the walkers.. only admiring the views for a short while as a few clouds had come in now - and when the sun passed behind them.. there was a noticeable dip in temperature..





we turned back and went back down the way we came for a brief distance.. before we stopped for lunch - where we shared some oggies, wagon wheels and bananas!! i forgot my flask (old man I sound) but tea up there would have been nice!! Phil momentarilly having a back spasm which was midly amusing for the rest of us.. we made our way back to the car.. mostly coming up with ideas for a house party - erm lets just say not very pc ones.. lol..

Tired legs amongst us we went seperate ways and made the journies back home.



So there we are the first myspace 'lets go for a stroll' walk completed.. many thanks to chris for sorting the accomodation out.. hopefully looking forward to seeing a few more faces next time :)

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Thats all folks... :)