Todays route was to start at the head of the Watkin path but quickly leave and follow Llyn Gwynant and then ascend Gallt Y Wenallt over to Y Llewidd and finally Snowdon.
That was the plan but again the weather had another idea.
Quite quickly you leave the Watkin path and follow a farm path over to Lynn Gwynant.
After leaving the lake it started to rain, light at first but then got a lot heavier.
The route then starts a heavy slog up through very marshy terrain to the top of Gallt y Wenallt.
At this point it started to snow. At first it was pretty light but got heavier and I ascended. Adding in 50+ mph gusts and the altitude gain really brought the temperature down. Luckily I had full wet weather gear on and a descent amount of layering. But the wind made it really hard going.
Here the visibility got really bad. The snow was coming down much heavier and the wind gusts made the ascending much harder. This was the last image I took. At this point I abandoned the plan of joining the Watkin path up to Snowdon and decided to head off at y Llewid instead and go back down the valley.
A shame but I’ve been up Snowdon loads of times and the going was too slow to get back before it would be getting too dark.
The last hour or so I was just concentrating on getting down in one piece and that the cafe at Gwynant would be open.
As usual further down the mountain and into the valley the weather wasn’t any where near as bad.
Great, the cafe was open so a soya cappuccino and carrot cake.
All in all a great day out but again hampered somewhat by the weather. Hopefully that will change as I’ve only a couple of more days left.
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