Of Rambling and Hillwalking: Snowdon and Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach

Over the weekend, I, following the Rambling and Hillwalking Society, went to Snowdonia and climbed 3 peaks-- Snowdon, the highest, and the two rocky mountains of Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach. 

Snowdon is the highest peak in England and Wales, towering at 1085m. Most of the ~14km hike via Rhyd Ddu was pretty smooth until we got to the ridge known as Bwlch Main. Well, I have about 0 experience with climbing mountains, so maybe if I say that it was difficult, it wasn't really. But to me, it was positively nerve-wrecking. The ridge was the narrow, steep, long-fall-on-both-sides type of path. All I could think about was 'one step at a time...' and 'don't look down'. The strong wind blowing and the mist didn't help one bit. The final ascent up to the Trig Point of Snowdon was another challenging bit because it became too steep to walk and I had to climb (ramblers call it scrambling?).

These photos were taken around the peak of Snowdon, when the fog cleared up a little bit. Can't see much, but remember; the fog had cleared a little when it was taken so try to imagine how thick it was when I was actually climbing up-- can't really see further than a few metres.

Descending Snowdon was another nightmare altogether. People who know me know that I'm absolutely terrified of high places and can feel vertigo easily. So I was practically planting my bottom on the rocks (rather painful experience) and making extremely slow progress down the slope. It was more of a mental strain than a physical one on the descent.

Anyway, I managed to climb up and down Snowdon safely, covering around 14km of hills and ascending 1085m to the peak. The whole hike took around 7-8 hours.

I actually climbed a little higher than the 1085m point, so I guess I can safely say I climbed till 1100m?

Walking into the clouds. Didn't take many photos once I was in them because I couldn't see anything.

Drama shot at a clearing at the peak. Hahaha.

Traveling Experiences #1

I've been thinking-- I've not written much lately. And generally, if I don't write stuff down I tend to forget them.

At our age (20...) I feel that it's far more important to learn than to enjoy. Of course, we can't just learn 24/7, 365 days in a normal year because learning is oftentimes both mentally and physically exhausting.

I've traveled more this year than I have in my whole life thus far. To be honest, the thought of sitting down in trains for 10 hours, or waiting at the airport for 6 hours to fly (oh heavens, no!) for another 3 hours would completely deter me from travelling away from the comfort of my home had I been in Malaysia. However, since I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to be studying (or rather, at the point of me writing this, I have officially finished my academic year abroad so I guess 'studying' isn't really the right word to use anymore...) in the UK as an exchange student, I figured I might as well make the most of my time here.

I told myself that I'd write down everything I've learnt from my travels. And so far, I haven't been doing that. You see, living so far away from home, you are given complete control over what you want to do in a day. Generally, when I have too many choices, I tend to make the lazy choice of not really doing anything. So. As it is apparent... the long posts I make on Facebook aren't the ones that are being saved. I should've probably wrote them into this blog. I mean, that was the whole point of me writing my blog anyway.

That being said, I'm going to procrastinate again because it's 4.02 a.m. and I can hear the birdsong outside my window. And yes. The sky is already kinda bright. No, I'm not joking. In Summer, the Sun is in the sky from 5 am ish till 9pm onwards. And although it isn't as warm as Malaysia's scorching 35 C, the intensity of the Sun rays here are quite a bit higher, I reckon. But I can't even remember how the Sun in Malaysia feels like anymore. It's been so long.