Photos.

Mountains

On thanksgiving weekend Dave and I went to Wales with a bunch of people he works with. It's a yearly mountain walking/hiking/climbing trip to Snowdonia (the major mountain range in Wales), and this year we had eleven people total, of varying fitness and skill levels. It took us all of Friday afternoon and evening to drive up, and most of Sunday to get back, so we really only had Saturday to do things. However, Saturday turned out to be a good day, thankfully. Dave went last year as well, and it rained the whole time, so they had a soggy, cold, and unenthusiastic climb.

This is the cottage we stayed in:

It was next to a farmhouse in a valley, on a little winding road with sheep and cows wandering over it.
This is the back of the cottage:

And this is the view from the front of the cottage across the valley:

On Saturday the plan was for all 11 of us to do a walk up Snowdon itself, so we headed off to the carpark at its base. The carpark was full. So some of us stayed there while the others took the cars down to another parking lot, to catch the park-and-ride bus (which is supposed to go every 10 minutes) back up. About an hour later they drove back up. The park-and-ride never showed up. By this time it was a little late for some of us slower people to be starting the Snowdon walk, so we decided to do a different walk.
The mountain we ended up climbing is called Tryfan. Its peak is 915 meters, or just above 3000 feet. We didn't end up going all the way to the peak, but came up one side to a spot that I think is at about 700 and something meters, and down the other side. I'm not sure exactly how much distance we covered, because I don't know what elevation we started out at. Anyway, we had a good 4 or 5 hour walk, and all had tired legs the next day.
Here is a view close to where we started from:

A group shot, still near the beginning:

Dave, Becs, Pete and Ellen.
This side of the mountain was harder going than the other. There wasn't a clear path in a lot of places, so we did a bit of backtracking. Some bits were a scramble (where you have to use hands as well as feet). At one point we had to climb up a steep bit and over a pointy bit of rock to keep going. Here's Becs coming over it:

It was a really fun climb up; there was almost no-one else on that bit of mountain and it was never too hard. We sat on the rocks, surrounded by purple heather and sunshine, to have our lunch.
The top of our climb was at Bwlch Tryfan, where there is a stone wall. We hid behind it for a break, because there was a really strong wind coming from the other side of the mountain.

This is the view looking ahead and down:

Here's a view looking back up from partway down:

This side had a more obvious path, more people, and lots of marshy areas lower down. Even lower down, the marshy-ness turned into streams:

We spent the evening relaxing around the coal fire in the cottage with food and drink. My only regret is that I had forgotten it was going to be thanksgiving weekend and didn't bake a pumpkin pie or anything to bring and introduce people to Canadian thanksgiving tradition. Ah well, maybe next year.

posted by Sian at 1:33 PM