Two days in Snowdonia

Aside from crawling through the road works around Conwy (not literally) the drive to north Wales was fairly pleasant. I'd given myself two days to do as much walking in Snowdonia as possible, and I succeeded in hiking over 15 miles, including reaching the summit of the impressive mountain, Carnedd Dafydd.
     The weather was poor, and very windy, but I thoroughly enjoyed the steep climb up Pen yr Ole Wen. I had to cross the top, which had large patches of snow covering, in the cloud, but I found the cairn on Carnedd Dafydd, and my way back, without falling off the edge (obviously).

Pen yr Ole Wen; there's a path there somewhere.


The view south from Pen yr Ole Wen.

Returning to the car an hour before the Youth Hostel (Idwal Cottage - the oldest YHA in Britain, I'll have you know) opened, meant I had time to stroll around the tarn, seen in the centre of the picture above, and take a closer look at the frozen waterfalls, starkly white against the dark rocks (you can just about make out one of them).

Today I had ideas of attempting Tryfan or Glyder Fach, but while the wind was slightly lessened the clouds were heavier and lower and around 11am it started to rain. I'd headed up to the south side of Tryfan but backtracked and dropped down on the east side completing a circle of the mountain. I had another look at the north ridge but the clouds were still hanging around so I headed down to Llyn Ogwen and a boggy walk around it's father shore. Of course by the time I was back at the car and preparing to return home the clouds had lifted and the sun starting to shine through. Such is life in the hills.

Tryfan (without clouds on top) seen from Pen yr Ole Wen