| Some time ago Erol had plans to climb Snowdon at night in winter, Richard
told me about it and a plan was hatched. As the glorious day (night?)
approached the chief conspirator dipped out as he wanted to finish his
extension. That left me and Richard. An email to the club list elicited
several replies most along the lines of “…great idea…love to come
along…unfortunately…” followed by a list of excuses involving family,
Christmas shopping and parties. There was however a positive reply from
Martin, but he couldn’t commit as he didn’t know how ill he was going to be
as he’d got his works Christmas do on the night before. I’d said all along
that the climb depended on the weather, I wasn’t going up if it was ****ing
down with rain. “Climb?”. Yes, climb. There’s no challenge in
doing the tourist path from Llanberis, for Christ’s sake, even a dumb train
can follow the track up. No, the plan was to go via Crib Goch and bivvie on
Snowdon summit. Finding the way through the pinnacles in the dark would be
a challenge. |
| So, the week before we were watching the weather guessers with eager
anticipation. Good news, the 5 day guesses were saying that the month of
rain was ending and it was going to get much colder with the wind coming
from the east. More encouragingly, this guess for the weekend remained
constant as the week progressed. Perhaps this was indeed a forecast rather
than a guess. Had their seaweed shrivelled up? or had their pine cone done
whatever pine cones do? Martin was also watching the weather forecasts and
evidently decided it might be too cold so he had an extra couple of beers or
something on the Friday night. Saturday morning arrives and I get a text
from Martin, “Sorry, I’m much too ill.” Fair do’s, been there, seen
it, done it, got the t-shirt. I wouldn’t fancy driving to Snowdonia after a
Christmas bash. |
| For a night start there’s no point leaving early so we left
Richard’s at about 1 pm on Saturday afternoon. It was damp and drizzly. Up
the M40 we went. Round about Banbury I had one of those heart stopping
moments when I realised I’d left my head torch behind. Muppet or what?
What’s the one bit of gear you’re definitely going to need at night,
especially when there’s no moon or glacier to light the way. TWAT. A quick
calculation of speeds and times and we figured out we’d be able to get to
Betws-y-Coed before the shops shut. Relief. Richard did a good sales pitch
on the Petzl Duo, so scour Betters and Capil Curig for one. No joy, but Joe
Browns phoned down to their shop in Llanberis who had one in and put it
behind the counter for me. So, off to Llanberis, splash the cash on another
head torch and into Pete’s for some food. By then it was well and truly
dark so we figured that there was no point delaying anymore so pile into the
car and head off to the Pen-y-Pass. |
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Off we go, however, because we took
minimal bivvie kit plus
ice axe and crampons, the packs were really light as we didn’t take ropes,
harnesses or rack. Other weight saving measures were no food or stove, a
thermos flask would do. It started a little drizzly and after a while I
stopped to put my GoreTex on. In seemingly no time at all we were at the
point where the track forks and we duly took the right turn and headed off
up to Crib Goch. We were still below the clouds and could see the lights
from Betters in the distance. These were the only lights in view other than
the two head torches on the Miners Track. We turned the head torches off and
found out how dark it actually was, I couldn’t even see my feet. Off up we
went. Then we went into the cloud and visibility dropped down to between 6
to 10 feet. Trying to follow a path in these conditions is “interesting” so
we just sort of went upwards. Soon we reached the freezing level. There
was no snow but rime ice and verglass was forming. The higher up we went
the worse it got. Visibility was still extremely poor. We’d start
scrambling up a rock steps without being able to see the top. At about 820 m
I decided that enough was enough. The verglass was making the rocks
dangerous and trying to find a route through the pinnacles with 6 foot
visibility was going to be far from easy. I’d quite happily do Crib Goch
at night or in winter conditions but not both together, or at least not in
these conditions. Discretion played the better part of valour so down
we went. |
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We’d go up via the Pyg track instead. The first bit was
easy as it was below cloud level and the path was obvious. Even when we
went into the cloud it was still easy to follow the path, right up until
around about where it joined with the Miners path. Then we got lost. It
was totally impossible to follow the path. Where was it? There’s so many
options to follow. We back track and try another variation. No joy, back
track again. Lets try up. Then we come to the mine workings. Now I know
we’re above and north of the path. Out with the GPS. We’re about 100 m off
the path so take a bearing and head for it. We arrive at what might or
might no be the path so say sod it, take a compass bearing for the obelisk
and try and follow a bearing. Not easy in difficult terrain with no
visibility. We scramble upwards, obviously not on the path as there’s
frozen turf beneath our feet. We’re close to the top by now so one more GPS
fix and we’re 150 m south of the path. New bearing and off up we go again,
this time contouring round slightly. I go up over a buttress and realise
that we hadn’t better go any further, there’s rather a drop underneath. I
check the altimeter which says we should have already topped out. Its also
time to think about using an ice axe rather than trekking poles. Sod it,
we’re nearly there, we head straight up. I’m beginning to doubt the
altimeter when I pop out onto the tourist path. Richard arrives, apparently
after saying we’d go straight up I shot off like a jack rabbit. Now the
easy bit, follow the railway tracks to the top. Sod Railtrack, we walked on
the tracks and took the risk of getting run over by a train. Out of the
gloom loomed the summit station. |
| Up until now we’d been sheltered from the wind, now it was
blowing a hurricane from the south. The most sheltered bivvie site was on
the railway platform, but first the obligatory summit photo’s. Scramble up
and hold onto the trig point to stop getting blown away whilst we try and
get some pictures. Scramble down and hope we can find not only the
rucksacks but the caff and station again, visibility still hasn’t improved. |
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Its 11:30 and the temperature is –5ºC. Time to get our
heads down. At 2:30 we hear voices, loud voices, obviously there’s other
lunatics out there. They don’t stay and head off down. One jokingly asks
his mates if they want to go down via Crib Goch. No they don’t. Back to
sleep. Its plenty warm enough in the ‘bags. |
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Sometime later we’re awoken by not just the howling of the wind but by its
force as well. Its decided to increase in strength and change direction.
We’re no longer sheltered. Every gust seeks out the smallest opening in the
bivvie bags and converts them to a wind sock. Making sure the zips are done
tight up fixes this but the wind’s so strong its getting under the bags and
kip mats and lifting our feet off the floor. No chance of sleeping in
this. It also gets colder as the wind compresses the loft out of the
sleeping bags. About 45 minutes later the squall ends and we can get some
sleep again.
I get up at 7, its getting light but still clagged in. The wind has dropped
completely and the temperature has risen to a tropical –2ºC.
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With the light we can see a bit more, maybe 10 yards now. We pack up, find
that the drinks in the flasks are still lukewarm and head off down to get
some breakfast. Although the cloud’s just as thick, visibility is much,
much better in the light. Following the path is easy. We find where we
topped out the night before. Less than 20 m south of the path. Off we go
for an uneventful walk down. The dawn wasn’t spectacular but very pretty
nevertheless. The clag also seemed to lift as time progressed, Lliwedd
was clear. That’s one hill I want to have a go at next summer, see if
we can get up one of Mallory’s routes. |
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| Anyway, the walk down seemed longer than the walk up and it was turning into
a nice day. But for us it was off to the Bryn Glo for breakfast then hit
the road. The great advantage of a night climb like this is you’re out of
synch with the traffic. Under 4 hours each way without blitzing the speed
limit. |
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