The weekend that just ended was, as far as I am concerned, one of the highlights of this trip. On Friday morning, Martin and I packed our bags and headed out the door to meet with a few of Martin's friends. The plan was simple: get everyone together by around 11:00 a.m., pack the cars, take one last shopping trip, and then drive up to Snowdon where we would spend 3 days hiking and camping.
Of course, plans don't usually go exactly according to plan. Martin and I showed up on time to pick up people and pack up the cars, but almost none of the other 4 lads we were heading out with were quite prepared. One had to finish an essay, another was only half-way packed, and a third was overly packed and had to sort out what he didn't need for the weekend. We were supposed to be on the road around 11:00. We were on the road much, much later than that. I believe it was after 2:00 when we finally left for our first camp-site.
After four hours of driving, we arrived at our initial destination, took a short hike in, spent a little while scouting out the landscape in search for a decent camping spot, and then pitched the tents and started up a fire. The camp-site was in an area that specifically said "no camping," but being out of sight of anyone or anything, and it being dark, we decided we had to set up somewhere before it became impossible to do so.
The plan for the following morning was also supposedly simple: get up around 7:00, pack up and hike back to the cars, and then drive to base camp of the Snowdon peak itself where we were to meet with 3 more of Martin's friends from the Frinton area. Again, not all things worked out. We were over 2 hours late for meeting up with the other portion of our hiking team. As a result, they took off up the mountain without us, and we never found them the entire trip.
Parking at Snowdon was something of a disaster. The car park we had chosen for the day was full, so, we had to park roughly a mile away from that, adding an extra mile to our days hike. That wasn't too bad, however, since it was on pavement and relatively level. The beginning of the trail up the mountain was somewhat level as well. However, once we reached the last 1/3 of the hike, it was anything but level. It was, in fact, as close to vertical as you can get without needing rock climbing equipment. On top of this, all of us were carrying large back-packs with tents, sleeping bags, food supplies, and our rain gear.
Needless to say, reaching the top felt like quite an accomplishment. However, the amount of snow at the top mixed with the brutal winds made it impossible to stay long. We took off back down the mountain again after about 45 minutes of time spent at the peak. In our hurry to warm up, we took the wrong path heading back down the mountain and got rather lost. Once we finally reached the bottom, we were miles off course and had to improvise, so, exhausted, baffled, and in varying degrees of muscular pain, we took to the road and started for a patch of trees nearby.
After about 2 miles of hiking, we made it to the woods and searched desperately for a spot to pitch our tents. In our desperation, we almost camped inside a horse pen. However, we all decided that, since it was in plane view of the nearby farm and surrounded by barbed wire, perhaps we should look some place else to camp. We eventually found something sheltered under the trees and amazingly made camp despite our zombie like states.
We woke the next day in a hurry to get to the nearest town. Once there, we gorged ourselves on a full fry-up at a little cafe that I will forever love. Perhaps it was my pure exhaustion and hunger speaking, but that place was excellent. From the cafe, two of our company called a taxi and got a ride back to the cars which they then drove back to the tiny town to pick the rest of us up. We survived the grand adventure.
Today had been a day of pure rest - late getting up, going nowhere, and doing a little home-cooking. I'll be happy when my toes are back down to their natural sizes.
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