Snowdon Hike
============

.. articleMetaData::
   :Where: London, UK
   :Date: 2010-07-20 00:08 Europe/London
   :Tags: walking, photography

This weekend I escaped London to enjoy two of my other hobbies: hiking and
photography_. This time I headed to Wales to climb up the 1085 meter high
mountain Snowdon_; Wales' highest peak. As opposed to staying in Llanberis_,
the town closest to many of the routes up Snowdon, I stayed in the little
quiet town Caernarfon_. Or rather, in the B&B `Tal Menai`_ not too far_ away
from it. If you get there by bus though, make sure you don't get off on
the one that's just a stop too far, because there is no way you can walk
along the road. We ended up backtracking over a cycle path.

.. image:: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/4806515240_d3c5b55e1e_m.jpg
   :align: right

Caernarfon has a pretty nice castle and also a bit of town wall still. It's
otherwise not very interesting but they do have a non-floating floating
restaurant. As it's on the `Menai Strait`_ there are some pretty sunsets_
however.

.. image:: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4116/4805931709_f9f773350f_m.jpg
   :align: left

There are several tracks up to Snowdon, also from different starting points.
Our starting point was the Pen-y-Pass_ parking place at 359 meters above
sea-leavel. From here on we went up the Pyg track to the summit. Unfortunately,
the Welsh weather was doing it's normal thing: clouds. Which means we saw
nothing of the view once we got to the summit at 1085 meters high. Basically,
the view was the one that you can see here on the left.

After tea and some snacks, we headed back down. And as soon as we did the
clouds cleared up showing us the view_ that was denied us on the way upwards.
We took the Miners track back to the parking place to take the bus back to
Caernarfon for a very welcomed proper pub meal.

I think I would like to go back once more, to try some of the other tracks.
The Crib Goch one is supposed to be a really nice ridge walk; unfortunately
it wasn't marked on the rendered OpenStreetmap_ at that point (it is now of
course).

To see all the pictures, please visit my `flickr set "Snowdon"`_.

.. _photography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derickrethans/
.. _Snowdon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdon
.. _Llanberis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanberis
.. _Caernarfon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caernarfon
.. _`Tal Menai`: http://www.talmenaiguesthouse.co.uk/
.. _far: http://osm.org/go/euXrxrDlz-
.. _`Menai Strait`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menai_Strait
.. _sunsets: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derickrethans/4805922697/
.. _Pen-y-Pass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen-y-Pass
.. _view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derickrethans/4805926313/
.. _OpenStreetMap: http://osm.org/go/eucX5xgY--
.. _`flickr set "Snowdon"`: http://www.flickr.com/photos/derickrethans/sets/72157624539800410/detail/