A couple of weeks back I travelled up to Snowden with Roger from work to have a look at the track I’ll be taking up for the main 3 peaks challenge. For anyone else planning to park at Pen-y-Pass, get there early as the car park was jam packed when we arrived at just before
The track we followed up to Snowden summit is called the Pyg track. At the bottom of Snowden I was under the impression it would be a nice fairly smooth track with a few stones here and there, maybe like a canal towpath or something but up hill. How I could have been so wrong (and if we’re being honest, STUPID) is beyond me. The track is more a mountain path (as you’d expect going up a mountain). By mountain path I mean a track strewn with boulders which involve using hands and feet to climb and falls of 6 – 8 feet in some places back down to the path. In some areas the track is not so easy to make out and due to our lack of navigation skills ended up having to climb a 13 foot rock face. Had we fallen from this point and missed the path the drop below us was about 40 – 50 foot.
The first hour was fairly easy going but come the second hour I thought my legs were going to give up on me. There I was thinking I was a mountain goat overtaking everyone on the path and then at about 3/4 the way up everything gave up. The lungs felt like they were about to give up, the legs had just about packed in and had I not been in such a public place I'd have more than likely collapsed in a heap. Once the fourth pensioner had overtaken me though, I pulled myself together, took a breath and cracked on.
For a first attempt I was actually most impressed with our time up the mountain. 2 hours up to the top which is what I was aiming for at a second or third attempt. Coming down was a lot easier, we took a diversion down the face of the mountain to the miners track which then allowed us to do a bit of jogging down. Coming down we made it in 1.5 hours. Including stops we travelled up and down Snowden in 4 hours.
