Enjoying the silence, the feeling, and the surge of my heartbeat in my ears, it began to dawn on me where I was standing. Ahead was the Clogwyn y Person arête; the place where, in 1960, John Brenchley, John Itches and Tony Evans became lost in the mist, and fell to their deaths. Right there.
I traced a plumb line from a point on the arête to the valley floor, then another. Any fall from there looked a chilling prospect; even in the comely weather of the evening it was easy to see there wasn’t a thing the boys could have done to save themselves.
After rewarding myself with a biscuit, I pulled my phone out to send a text message to Mal before beginning my descent into the valley for the night.
I had an unread message that I must have missed whilst high on Crib Goch: ‘Forecast poor tomorrow, but rain isn’t due until 3 to 4 a.m. Might be worth heading for the summit tonight. Mal.’
Oh, hell. Really? It was now 10.30 p.m. The legacy of a diffused sunset still faintly lit the sky, but it was weakening. I read the message again, my heart heavy. I could ignore it. I was tired and looking forward to my sleeping bag; and now here was the prospect of another couple of hours’ walk to a much more exposed, rockier place. An ascent into the gathering darkness with a forecast of bad weather wasn’t in my plan – but Mal was right. The last thing I needed was to be clobbered by bad weather in the night, then be faced with either a wild climb to the summit in the rain or a dejected descent back to Pen-y-Pass. I looked down from the col into Cwm Glas, my intended campsite. Immediately I could see two or three accommodating spots a few hundred metres down the valley; one by a stream, another by a small lake. Cups of whisky-spiked cocoa, good, natural shelter, a reprieve from strength-sapped nerves … splendid. I could be there, tent up, in twenty minutes. A hard image to resist.
I looked over to the south-west and balked. A bank of cloud had spilled over Y Lliwedd on the opposite side of the horseshoe – the first wave of an advancing charge of bad weather. Visibility would be the first to go, and much sooner than dawn. If Mal’s forecast was right, rain wouldn’t be far behind. I had no real urge to experience the weather rife within Snowdon’s accident statistics, nor did I have any real urge to become one. One thing was inescapable: the narrow window of stable weather that had remained open for me on Crib Goch was now rapidly closing. If I wanted to get to the top with any degree of decorum I’d have to summit tonight, and quickly.
Pulling out my drink bottle, I peered into it. Half a litre left, at most. Snowdon’s top was a bare cap of rock; no streams, no little lakes with outflows from which to scoop water. I had 300 metres of ascent to go and my throat was already dry as a stick. Rationing my water would be miserable, but possible. After a longing look down the valley towards the campsite that wasn’t to be, I started up the other side of the ridge – the Crib y Ddysgl – this time in haste. The ground was easier, less steep, but still complex. I might even have enjoyed it had I not been eager to beat the weather to the summit.
I can’t tell you when it happened, but at some point I lost the path.
Although the ground beneath my feet no longer had any definition, I could still see. Without the sensory bludgeon of artificial light, darkness quietly creeps up on you. You’ll walk and walk, and then eventually you’ll stop to adjust your clothing or have a wee and realise that at some point, whilst your back was turned, it’s gone and gotten properly dark on you.
I’d been avoiding getting out my head torch, partly to enjoy the primal oddness of climbing a mountain in the cool, grey-blue tones of dusk, and partly because my night vision – slowly matured over the last hour of failing light – would be instantly buggered the second I looked at something bright. My phone map was bright, so I didn’t give it due attention, and before long I was groping up a black slope following my nose. I could see the angled skyline of the mountain above me against the sky – but any sense of scale had long disappeared, along with the detail of the ground. Surely I was almost up by now.
A noise caught me as I stepped over a small gully. It was the giggle of running water. With a cry of happiness, I downed what I had left in the bottle, then found a fast-flowing part of the burrowed-in stream and refilled. Now at least I had something I could cook with.
I continued to freelance along the slope, which was covered in dinner plates of loose scree. Perhaps the darkness was a blessing, as I now had no idea of the consequences of a slip. If it descended smoothly to the valley floor – unlikely, given the considerable height I’d quickly gained – little more than bruises and scuffs. Or perhaps I was on a scree fan draped atop a vertical cliff – in which case, a mis-step, an untidy fall, a roll and a swift acceleration down the loose ground towards an edge …
I shuddered, and focused on my feet and balance. Some of the most dangerous spots on this mountain weren’t knife-edges; they were slopes like this, which didn’t present the same kind of instant, shake-you-by-the-lapels danger that makes your movements delicate, like on Crib Goch. Up there, the peril you’re in is hardly subtle and you can react – if not exactly in a way that will expedite your escape – in a manner that will at least make you pause for considerable thought and a re-check of your movements. But on a slope like this – darkness notwithstanding – it’s quite possible to swagger onto dangerous terrain with your hands practically in your pockets, ignorant of just how lethally steep the ground you’re on is until a slip sends you tumbling down it. This sort of scenario appeared to account for many accidents on Snowdon, particularly in the winter, when snow hid the subtle shifts of the ground. I’d heard a story of a rescue team who were dispatched to find a casualty below a notorious steepening next to the Snowdon railway, which – in winter – becomes a hardened ice slope above the lip of a cliff. The team found a man dead at the base of the cliff, but it was only when descriptions of clothing and timings were compared that the team realised that these didn’t quite match – this person was another victim, as yet unreported. The man they’d been called to assist was found later, also dead.
Amber lights appeared below like the view from an aircraft when I pulled myself over the lip of the ridge and stood up on the broad shoulder that arced towards the peak of Yr Wyddfa* – Snowdon’s summit. The views from here in daylight are said to be some of Britain’s most expansive; in optimum clarity four countries – England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland – can be seen, as well as the Isle of Man. Although almost hypnotised by the odd sense of seeing this view at night and in only a gentle breeze, I spotted the path and joined it, grateful for the opportunity to relax and enjoy the feeling of approaching the highest point in England and Wales in exhilarating darkness.
Ahead, a splinter of angled rock known as the Finger Post marked the top of the Pyg Track, the beginning of which I’d left earlier before turning on to Crib Goch. All around, the smouldering carpet of light was punctuated by huge holes of darkness; it took a moment for me to realise that these were the mountains. It’s an odd reversal; in daylight the mountains take the stage, with humankind very much in the wings – hidden even. But with darkness nothing natural is lit, and the sinuous extent of man’s touch on this landscape is revealed.
Continuing towards the summit on the breezy walkway, my peripheral vision was snagged by something unnaturally linear slinking up to me from the right: the railway. That was it. As much as anyone could – or would want to – on this mountain, I was able to relax. Even if the worst happened, if meteorological hell broke loose tonight and I had to beat a hasty retreat – this was my handrail. It was an odd anticlimax. Normally, such comforting civility is encountered lower down when your expedition is unwinding, not just as you reach the top. This summit was hardly going to be a wilderness experience; but after the emotional test of Crib Goch, maybe I’d earned a bit of security.
A summit camp hadn’t actually been in my plan, but it might be a fun feeling and would certainly fit the modus operandi of being on the mountain at its quietest, most changeable time: of all the 56 million people in England and Wales tonight, I’d be the highest. And more importantly, I had the grand podium of Snowdon entirely to myself, with the warm feeling of having done Crib Goch. Normally this place would be heaving with all manner of traffic, even in