Birthday weekend

Birthdays aren't something that generally stick in my mind. I remember many of them in my early childhood but after that, they really don't distinguish themselves. I have a feeling I'll remember my 30th though.

The crew (Rob, Em, Andy, Will, Vicky and myself) set off yesterday to go camping and climb Snowdon. We set off early and met up in Betws Y Coed where I was instructed to buy walking boots and proper socks. After some advice from a knowledgeable woman I ended up with a decent pair and also a good pair of socks. The boots were slightly pricey at £80 but they turned out to be well worth it.

After we set up the three tents (I was sharing the extension of Will's) and things at the campsite, next to Llyn Gwynant, we headed off in search of the path. The one recommended by Andy was the Llanberis Path, which is the longest but also the flattest. It also follows the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which was good as the train geek in me was interested in seeing it.

The trip up was hard. I'm not all that fit at the moment so I found it really hard going for some of it. The worst bit was before the summit where it's all slippy shale and it's hard to keep good grip. The weather wasn't bad, cloudy enough to not be too hot but not totally grim either. We had a worrying moment near the Clogwyn railway station where a cloud went past and we thought it was fog coming in. But we made it to the summit without any major problems and joined the seething hordes at the top of the highest mountain in Wales.

Was it worth it? Hell yes. One of the things about living in an area like this is that it's remarkably easy to take it all for granted. Snowdonia is less than an hour's drive from where I live and the scenery around it is just spectacular. It was a little hazy but the view from the summit was still amazing. There was one bit lower down where you could see roads and houses, and it was like looking down from a plane. Very scary.

It was interesting to see the trains pootling up and down, both diesel and steam. It's quite impressive to see the tracks go right the way up to the very top of the mountain. They're rebuilding the top cafe at the moment so only work trains go up to the summit at the moment. I would like to go up on the train some time, just for the experience. As Andy said, now I've walked to the top, it's OK to go on the train now.

The journey back down was pretty uneventful, but by then people were sunburnt and achy so the stream of complaints did get louder. Scarily people were still heading up when we got near the bottom at 5:00pm. Also at one point some maniac actually ran past us heading downhill, possibly training for the Snowdon marathon. When we got back to the car park it was such a relief to drag the boots off and sit down.

After stopping off for a pint in the Pen-Y Gwryd, we headed back to the campsite for food and drinks. It was a good evening on the whole, toasting marshmallows on a reasonably sized campfire and talking nonsense. I had bought a bottle of blue WKD but it somehow didn't make it to the car when I packed it so Will and I went halves on a bottle of sherry. We stayed up till about midnight, talking shite and occasionally watching the antics of the next door group of pyromaniacs who seemed intent on creating the biggest inferno they could using tons of logs and petrol. I found my feet weren't too bad but the area that hurt most after the walk were my hips for some reason, and they were still bad in the morning. Not too bad now though.

Today was roastingly hot. After watching Will swim in the river and dismantling the tents, there was talk of going to the beach and we actually did set off. But we decided we were all too burnt already and so we headed home. On the way noticed that the lake was unnaturally smooth so got some great pictures. Once I got back home I basically spent the day playing some more GTA4 and trying not to walk around too much until a thunderstorm hit.

So yeah, my 30th absolutely ruled!