Late May Bank Holiday - Llanberis and Snowdon

It's a bit late but I thought I'd tell you about my bank holiday weekend just gone. We ventured back to Snowdonia but this time we were going to make it up Snowdon at long last! 

Matthew found us a campsite in Llanberis that we could walk to Snowdon from, it was called Mountain  Farm Campsite.

Upsides : big campsite ,it wasn't crowded, beautiful views of the mountains and lakes from the campsite, a few minutes walk from town, walks from campsite up to Snowdon and to Llanberis waterfall, you can look at the farm animals and ducks and chickens wander freely around the campsite.

Downsides: not many flat pitches and ground a bit rocky.

Saturday

We arrived at the campsite and set up camp, we then followed some quite hazy directions to the waterfall off the campsite's website. We eventually found it and it was very impressive.

This is the top of the waterfall

And this is the bottom of it! It was beautiful and we visited late afternoon and the light was fantastic. 

We then walked on to Llanberis and straight to the nearest beer garden for a nice cold cider.

Then back to the campsite for a barbeque!

Sunday

Sunday was another beautiful sunny day for our walk up to Snowdon, this was my first proper hike up a mountain so we decided to go up the Llanberis path, which is longer than some routes but is the easiest path and the most popular. It is 9 miles from the summit and back and there are some quite steep sections, this bit was the hardest, the final push before seeing the summit on the other side. The train runs up alongside it and the views are amazing looking back the way we came and further towards the sea.

The summit is not surprisingly the busiest summit in the UK, down to the fact that you can reach it by train as well as hiking up. Throw into the mix that it was a bank holiday and a lovely day and what you get is a very busy summit! We had to queue up to get to the top, as Snowdon came into view you could see people gathering up at the summit looking like ants on an ant hill. I didn't like it very much up at the summit because it was too busy and the clouds came across for a little bit so you couldn't see the view very well. 

We moved down the mountain a little bit and sat and had a well deserved picnic.

Love this picture, I look like a proper adventurer, Snowdon summit is behind me. I was very pleased with my achievement my first mountain, the highest in England and Wales, 1085 metres above sea level!

Our picnic spot, Max was just checking we didn't drop anything! You may also notice Max's backpack, Max carried his own water and folding bowls the backpack has a handle so that he can be lifted safely over stiles. Max was quite the celebrity known as 'the rucksack dog' 

Walking back was quite hard especially the bit that was hard coming up because it was shingley underfoot and I slipped because it was loose, luckily I fell slowly and didn't hurt myself. 

Back in Llanberis we went to a lovely pub and had a nice big burger and chips in the pub garden and a few ciders. 

We had such a lovely day!

Bank holiday Monday 

Woke up to wind and torrential rain that showed no sign of stopping unfortunately so we had to just pack up in the rain. We looked like drowned rats by the end of it and it sort of put a dampener on things after such a lovely weekend. Oh well! such is life! 

Hope you enjoyed your bank holiday too!

Thank you for reading, 

Abigail x