Then the road bends and you brush the village of Capel Curig, before entering quaggy open ground, scudding along the shore of Llynnau Mymbyr towards the dark mass of Snowdon. From here, the triangular sweep of Crib Goch guards its parent peak in a protective curl, like a drawn cloak. The building overgrown with vegetation that appears to the right is the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, marking the corner turn into the Pass of Llanberis – the road that wiggles up to the foot of Snowdon like a dropped cable.
Crags tower either side as you ascend, including some of the most storied in Britain. Find similar outcrops in Spain or Switzerland and, chances are, they’re just crags – unremarkable, unexplored and unexploited. But in Britain, being the confined menagerie of interested parties and interesting terrain it is, almost every significant cut of rock in Snowdonia will have been looked at with a devious eye and quickening pulse at some point. The crags on the Pass in particular have made history, home to climbing routes teased from the dark North Wales rock and given bleak, strikingly alliterate titles: Cenotaph Corner, Cemetery Gates, Cobweb Crack. Snowdonia has a certain darkness to it: the rain-streaked remnants of dead industry and hard, Welsh nomenclature lend the region something of a sinister air, which – combined with the region’s abrasive mountains and frequently tough weather – makes for an atmosphere so thick you could punch it.
Architecturally, the mountains hereabouts are sharp and broken. The clichéd postcards of this place consist of high summits studded with flakes of rock in silhouette, bristling at angles, like the radial spikes of a medieval torture machine. Occasionally these contain a climber, gazing out to a bruised sky, or swinging off a frozen seesaw of rock. Snowdon itself is extremely ancient, composed of some of the oldest exposed rock in Britain – a mixture of pressure-hoisted sea-floor sedimentaries and volcanics brutalised by pressure and glaciation into a sharp, arrestingly fractured massif. It’s an angrier landscape than the Lake District, and more claustrophobic than the Scottish Highlands, one of geological menace and home to a more chilling breed of outdoor adventure than the Lake District’s cuddly persona. It seems to say that if you want to find small animals wearing floral dresses and drinking tea, go to the Lakes. If you want dark, cold rock that hates you, go to Snowdonia.
I reached the corner turn on to the Pass of Llanberis a little before 8 p.m. A quick supply run in Bethesda had yielded a few comforts for a night out on the hill – sugary snacks, crisps, noodles, hot chocolate and some whisky to liven it up. It seemed a little unreal and adventurous that I was going to be approaching this dreaded ridge in little over an hour. It was the sensible choice, given the forecast – but tackling the ridge with darkness coming seemed even more intimidating than doing it in bad weather. Even in rain, there might possibly be someone else crazy enough to be up there with me – probably wearing shorts – who would be able to pat me on the back and gee me up. But at this hour, I’d almost certainly be very alone up there.
Slowing the car, I rounded the corner onto the Pass and entered the cloud, brightening to a dappled gold as I climbed. A building sharpened to the right as the Pass levelled, a few vehicles and a hut to the left. This was it: Pen-y-Pass, the place from which to wave a handkerchief in the direction of most who head for Snowdon. For those three boys in 1960, this was their last glimpse of civilisation.
The car park was practically empty when I pulled in, turned off my engine and sat, listening to the gentle whumps of the wind against the car and the ticks of its cooling engine. Cloud was clawing the Pass frantically, one moment allowing glimpses of lofty context down its rain-glistened length, the next snatching it away. I left the car and laced up my boots, wondering what I should leave behind.
I imagined the worst happening, and somebody coming across the car days from now. They’d find discarded Twix wrappers on the back seat, filthy loafers in the passenger footwell, a warm jacket in the boot, batteries – trivial comforts awaiting someone never coming back, and now the object of post-mortem scrutiny. Could that spare jacket have prevented the hypothermia that killed him? Could that Twix have saved his life? Spare batteries – surely they could have done something?
Ridiculous, yes. But this particular hill was giving me dreadful feelings. Part of me thought it couldn’t possibly be that bad. I’d seen the shrugs and heard the ‘No big deal’ bravado from people who had done Crib Goch, but I also had a suspicion that, no matter how convincing the patter, most of them had felt a little shake on the ridge at some point. Now, with the act of leaving the car having been laboured over and over in my head, I was analysing every act for that critical choice: the moment when I’d make a decision from which I couldn’t come back.
Locking the car and taking a last look – wondering, ever so briefly, if the next person to acknowledge it would be from a search and rescue team – I set off onto the path known as the Pyg Track, which leaves the corner of the car park at a forgivingly gentle incline. Constructed from huge boulders, it has the effect of appearing to have been made for a giant, ascending grandly but gently to a narrow pass called the Bwlch y Moch. Continue over the pass and you enter the basin of the smashed cauldron of peaks comprising what is known as the Snowdon horseshoe,* invisible from this angle. Or, on arrival at the pass, you bear right and take the much steeper route onto the cauldron’s broken rim, and eventually onto Crib Goch. Here, the scenery inhales grandly. Muscular hills, glistening water, and everywhere the dark, lichened Snowdonian rock, cracked and fractured in fragile-looking blades, like ancient, natural porcelain.
The air was warm, becoming slightly chilly only when enlivened by the wind. It was the sort of temperature that suggested a thunderstorm, but the atmosphere was thin and the cloud – whilst prolific – looked weightless, certainly for the time being. I passed two walkers on their way down, a couple who looked knackered enough to have been to the summit. I lifted my head and smiled with the kind of eye-roll, aren’t-we-mad, this-weather-eh? kind of look walkers often give each other, hoping that they might engage for a moment. I wanted to ask whether or not they knew of anybody else still on the mountain, but they didn’t look like they wanted to chat – they were on their last stretch, and obviously weren’t in the mood. All I got was a murmur of acknowledgement and the sound of their stiff breathing as they passed. Alone, I continued, the path steepening until after about half an hour I reached the pass, out of breath. Ahead the Pyg Track descended into a steep, broad depression before arcing right over a stile and barrelling into a huge basin beneath a ring of mountains that peered down upon it like a circle of faces. From here the distant summit of Snowdon nudged out from behind creased cliffs to my right. It looked far above, and far away.
Part of the reason so many people get to the summit of Snowdon is because there’s a train running up it, a café on the top and paths from every direction that resemble small roads for most of their length. Unsurprisingly, these do little for the mountain’s credibility as an objective for adventurers. After hours of walking, arriving at the top to stand in the same place as a festival of day-trippers clad in the meagre clothing of sea level who haven’t shuffled more than 100 metres – not to mention a natty building and a puffer train – must be a disquieting experience, and one I was curious to have the following day after my night camping alone on the uncivilised mountainside. The railway is an enormously popular draw, and doubtless a wonderful day out for people who can’t, or won’t, walk up Snowdon. But the walking routes see their fair share of bizarre traffic, too – cursed with the status of ‘highest’, the mountain attracts all sorts of feats that lay claim to an ascent with a particular, quirky caveat. Over the years a number of extraordinary sights have lumbered out of the mist on Snowdon’s slopes – from groups clad in pyjamas, dressed as gorillas or, on one memorable occasion, driving a car.*
That this perception has caused Wales’ highest hill to be viewed as something of a sacrificial lamb to tourism is a shame, because as a mountain Snowdon is absolutely bloody stupendous.
The four peaks that form the massif aren’t arranged in a