Yesterday with a good weather forecast promised we decided to walk up Snowdon (3560 ft) via the Watkin Path. It's a long walk with an ascent of over 3400 ft. so we knew that we had a long day ahead of us. We quickly walked through the Oak woodland to the start of the path which snaked its way up the hillside, passing on the way the waterfalls of Afon Cwm Llan, the old watermill and a ruined building and soon arrived at Gladstone's rock where we stopped to read the inscription on it. From there we carried on to the slate tips of the old quarry.
After that the path steepens quite considerably. We were lucky at this point as the cloud cover above meant that it wasn't unbearable walking up this steep section but at the Lliwedd the cover lifted and it became quite hot. We stopped there for refreshments and to admire the views before we tackled what was the worst and hardest part of the route.which was the steep,loose and very difficult path to the summit.
We slowly, in fact very slowly walked up this difficult stretch in the baking hot sun and we were glad to get to the top where we sat and had a drink and watched the world go by as it was teeming with people taking advantage of the weather like us. From the ridge, the view to the North was just of white fluffy clouds like you'd see from a plane but the Southern view was clear and breathtaking.
A quick visit to the Summit Cafe to replenish our water and we were going down the ridge to Bwlch Cwm Llan where we descended steeply to a disused railway track and followed it down to the start of our walk. It was then back through the cool woodland to the cafe at the start of the walk and enjoyed a nice coffee there. Coming home we also stopped at the Bryn Tyrch in Capel Curig for a refreshing shandy and drank it by the side of the Afon Lligwy. A nice end to a great day out on the hills