Climbing Snowdon

'I'm not very good with heights. Or with edges of mountains,' I said. 'So I don't want a difficult path. On the other hand I don't want the longest path either.' With these requisites in mind we asked the man (youth barely out of his teens) on reception in our hotel to suggest a path.

There are six paths up Snowdon of varying difficulty and length; he recommended taking the pyg track up and the miners' track back. When we got to Pen-y-pass at the start of the pyg track we read the noticeboard: this is the most challenging of the paths up Snowdon. Oh whoopee!

Fortunately it was possible to make it less challenging by taking the 'easy' version of the path. The hard path involved walking along this ridge - seen from the 'easy' path we were on. If you look closely you can see tiny figures on the top. This was a serious ridge suitable for very experienced walkers.

'Tell me again: why are we walking up here?' I had to ask. At this point we're just about to start on the final, steepest, hands and knees bit into the mist.

Obviously this photo was taken from lower down but that's the mist we're about to enter. Abandon hope ...

Actually it was like sale time in Debenhams by now. We were queuing to manoeuvre the difficult bits. But finally we made it (see Monochrome Maniac photo below). Honest. That is the top of the mountain.

This year a new visitor centre/cafe was opened up there, much to the disapproval of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, apparently. Prince Charles can keep his opinions to himself because:

a) he doesn't even live in Wales;

b) I doubt he has ever walked up Snowdon and so wouldn't know of the need for a cup of tea;

c) it's very sympathetically built of granite so it blends into the surroundings. Not that it could be a blur on the landscape as the landscape is never visible!

Hafod Eryri, the visitor centre, replaces the old building, designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (of Portmeirion fame), which, because of its great age, had fallen into disrepair and had high maintenance costs.

While we in the queue for tea Husband remarked that we were older than most of the other walkers. We felt good about this - for a while - until we began the downward trek where we encountered the Snowdon Race runners. 'Ah, that's where all the old men are!'

Husband is of the opinion that men reach a certain age and voices in their heads tell them to 'run up Snowdon before it's too late'. They run up and down the 'easiest' path next to the little train track. Ten miles in all and the fastest do it in less than one hour.

It took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to cover the 3.5 miles up, and 2 hours and 5 minutes to walk the slightly longer - 4 miles - route back. And considering the noticeboard said to allow 6 hours we thought that was pretty good.

My calves have just about stopped aching ...