Trek to Mount Snowdon

Place: Snowdonia, Wales
Route: London Euston - Bangor - Llanberis(Basecamp) - Bangor - London Euston
Date(s) of Travel: August 25 - August 27, 2012

You can read more about the place here: Snowdonia, Wales

My Experience:

The last time I went to Snowdonia, I never had the opportunity to hike the mountain Snowdon. Some of my friends were planning for quite some time to hike snowdon during the long weekend in august. Since, I was in tenerife, spain I wasn't checking mails about this trip. But once I got back to London and got to know about these plans, I decided to join for the hike at the last minute. It was also an opportunity to meet some of my old friends from pune, India.

My friends already left in the morning for Llanberis, wales for the hike. I started in the afternoon and took a train to Bangor from London Euston and the journey was around 3 hours. From Bangor, I took a bus to Llanberis which is the basecamp for the trek. There are two youth hostels, one in Llanberis and another one in Pen-Y-Pass which is 20 minutes away by bus. I was managed to book a place only in Pen-Y-Pass, but all my friends stayed in Llanberis itself since they have planned everything bit earlier. Llanberis is a small tourist city where there are quite a few shops and also you can do some activities like visiting the thermal power station or taking the steam rail to the top of the mountain. Finally I reached my hostel in Pen-Y-Pass by another bus in the late evening.

The next day morning I came to Llanberis to join my friends for the hike. After buying some sandwiches for lunch we started our trek from Llanberis. The trek is quite a easy one from Llanberis route, as it goes along the way of steam railway. It was a sunny day and there were loads of people doing the hike. The mountains and landscapes were beautiful all along the way and you could see them in the above pictures. Due to the variable speed among our group, we missed out lot of people before reaching the summit. We reached the summit around 12.30 PM and it was very foggy at the top. There is a restaurant at the top where you can get food and some drinks. We had our lunch and decided to start back around 1.30 PM.

While walking back, I suggested my friends why don't we take the Pen-Y-Pass route. They call it as miners route as there were quite a few mines operated around that area. It was a little rough route but it was worth it as the landscapes were fantastic. There was a small lake between two mountains and we took some rest to enjoy the nature. Finally around, 6 PM we reached the Pen-Y-Pass area. In the hostel, they serve good food for dinner and breakfast was the best one.

The next day, it was raining all the time. Our train was in the evening and we decided to visit "Swallow Waterfalls" in the nearby village. Around 12 PM we headed back to bangor and took a train back to london. It was a wonderful hike with lot of fun memories.

Thought of Day: Not all those who wander are lost. - JRR Tolkien