Yr Wyddfa

We had never hiked Snowdon, and with settled weather on the forecast we made an early start in anticipation of a few crowds on the routes and especially at the summit. We chose the Rhyd Ddu route and the sun was trying to break through as we set off.

We found we'd been a little optimistic with our weather forecast, as we were soon in cloud. At least it wasn't raining, or cold. Apparently we were hiking up an exposed ridge at this point!



We broke through the cloud layer to see beautiful sunshine and blue sky, about 200 metres below the summit.

The sunshine had brought out the big crowds and I needed to join a queue to get to the Summit marker.

Though later on, the crowds made the summit a little more crowded.

We stopped for a coffee at the visitor centre and headed down towards the Snowdon Ranger path, crossing the railway line and spotting the source of the crowds!

To access the Snowdon Ranger route we needed to walk part way down the Llanberis Path, and here you can see the crowds heading up, the summit marker, and the train heading up to the visitor centre.

We looked over towards the PYG and Miners routes, to see more crowds heading up, and it was a pleasure to regain the peace and quiet of the less popular side of Snowdon.



Our route led us off the Snowdon Ranger, through some bogs and across a slate quarry to get back to Rhyd Dhu, before crossing the Welsh Highland Railway line.

Getting Down To Business

My life is unfortunately not all skiing, hikes and Tarte au Myrtilles, so, having waved bye to Andy who was heading to the UK, the next day I started on the job in hand. As a warm up, I totally masked out the apartment, and then painting the ceiling twice. Thereafter I spent a portion of each day getting the apartment up to a reasonable standard of decor, planning to spend the remainder of the time on hiking.

One slight disadvantage of travelling light by air, is that I'm not able to carry my tools, so ended up buying some Swiss tools, plus paint, varnish, sandpaper etc. I have decided that I really prefer my own, and I have now developed a dislike of Swiss paint. The stuff for the ceiling was like glue, and I'm not happy with my work, and have decided to repaint it next winter, and use my favourite paint. The varnish for the exterior was also pretty thin and odd, and reacted with the existing covering, leaving a sticky mess, which needed more stripping back.

My best results were with the Wood Oil I'd purchased, which was French, and I'll seek out the brand again, as there is still plenty of interior woodwork to be restored. I refuse to worry about the labelling on the can. It was certainly not Hell to use!



It was good to be able to get out and about and enjoy the scenery, which helped me regain some perspective on what I was actually achieving each day.

Hiking the Rostigraben

Starting from Chandolin we took the Tsape chairlift up, which was not without a little drama, as the lift operator could not work the ticket machine. The chair only runs for 30 minutes every couple of hours and time was getting on, but he finally managed to issue a ticket.

We walked over to see the Illsee barrage, which is quite spectacular then passed Lac Noir, then carried on up the Schwarzhorn. The path is marked as difficult on the route, though the new Swiss Hiking grades only mark it a T2 Mountain Hike. It's certainly a hands on walk at times, with good eyesight needed to spot the marker paint.



After a walk around on the top, we had lunch at 2790m with our feet dangling into German speaking Switzerland and looking down on the lakes of Oberer and Unterer Meretschisee.
Andy had a little vertigo, and felt drawn to the edge, which was not good.

On the way back, we stopped at the Tsape restaurant, which has recently been demolished and rehoused in a tent behind the chairlift station.

"Have you ever visited a Harvester"...

We hiked down the piste back to the car park, as it was the most direct route. It's surprising how steep ski pistes are! The day 's height gain after the chair lift was 315m. Descent was 860 metres. It felt like more!