Snowdon Horseshoe–Part 2

This is the second part of my blog about my recent completion of the Snowdon Horseshoe last Saturday. Part 1 describes our route. In this post I want to raise some ideas and thoughts that occurred to me during the day, and afterwards.

I don’t want this to sound like one of those “Isn’t it awful / it must be stopped / regulated / policed” type of posts. Basically this is about kit, preparation and experience.

Kit

The Welsh mountains, in fact all upland areas, can be dangerous places. Accidents are just that, accidents. No one sets out to twist an ankle or break a leg or even get soaked in an unexpected shower of rain, but it happens. If it happens to me I don’t want to die from hypothermia while I’m waiting for the MRT to come and get me, so I always carry waterproofs in the British mountains. Along with a fleece and normally a belay jacket. I might leave the latter behind on a really hot day, and the only time I have left the waterproofs behind is when were in Cyprus.

I don’t want to sound holier than thou and I guess that part of envious of those people who can stuff all they need for a day in a 20litre pack with room to spare. I try not to carry the kitchen sink but I want to make sure I carry enough to be safe and comfortable if things go pear shaped (or even if the weather just turns a bit nasty).

So you can probably imagine how I feel when I see people in jeans and trainers heading up the Miner’s track of Snowdon, with just a small satchel for their lunch and camera.

Preparation

If I am heading away from home for a day or weekend, I normally have some idea of what my destination is like. I’ll look it up the internet, read reviews, look at You Tube, talk to “friends” on Facebook who have been there. I wouldn’t head out to Lundy thinking, “I’ll do some scuba this weekend. How hard can it be? Its just like swimming isn’t it? Gear? Oh I’m sure I can hire that somewhere”.

But because walking is, well just walking, it seems that people just turn up and go “Oh, lets just pop up Snowdon, its just a walk in the park.”

Experience

Linked with the preparation thing is experience. If someone wants to do something then they should absolutely go for it. All I would ask is the they do a bit of preparation before hand. Learn about what is involved and get some practice in so that they can build up to the main event.

I might like to ski one of the grand slaloms that feature on Ski Sunday. But I would be a fool to turn up in Austria, hire a pair of skis and throw myself down a mountain. I would learn to ski on slightly less steep ground first and work up to it. So why don’t people do it with mountains? Again, probably because walking is just walking.

Up in the Lake District a couple of weeks ago we encountered a family  heading up towards Fairfield – intent on doing the whole horseshoe from Rydal. We stopped and chatted to them at the top of Nab Scar, where one of their daughters already looked fit to drop. When I told them how long I was expecting the walk to take us they were all shocked. They needed to be back in Ambleside inside of four hours. At least the next family I met had the good sense to turn back of their own accord when they realised it was taking longer than expected.

Where’s Fred?

And so to a story from last Saturday that sums it all up. Fred is not his real name, and if you recognise yourself from this post then my apologies. The story unfolded over the course of Crib Goch but is essentially this:

There were four mates who worked together, where doesn’t really matter. One of them was a keen walker but the other three had no experience at all, apart from one who was used to the highlands of his native India. The walker convinced his three friends to join him on a trip to the Lake District and an ascent of Helvellyn, via Striding Edge. They all had a great day out so the walker suggested that next time out they should all do Crib Goch and the Snowdon Horseshoe.

So a date was set and plans were made. However, for some reason or another the walker was unable to make the planned date. It may just have been bad luck, it may have been that something else came up or, as was suggested at one point, it may have been because he had second thoughts and wimped out.

Regardless of the reason why, the walker was not there when his three friends set off from the Pen y Pass car park and headed up towards Crib Goch. At the foot of the approach to the ridge they started from the right hand side and headed up some steep scree before scrambling up an almost vertical wall.

Well two of them did. Fred got half way up the wall before deciding that he might have bitten off more than he could chew. It was at this point that our little group of four arrived at the foot of the approach to the ridge. Patches of conversation drifted over to us “If you don’t feel comfortable you should turn back”, “Is this the Pyg track?”.

Fred didn’t look comfortable and thinking I might be able to help him down, perhaps by spotting for him, helping with foot and hand placement, I moved over to the scree and started up after him. As I got to the foot of the wall, and in line with Fred and his mates at the top of the wall one of them dislodged a rock, that must have been about a metre in diameter.

The rock crashed into the wall above Fred and shattered into several smaller pieces. One of these hit Fred on the arm, while another, the size of a football, sailed over his head in my direction. I watched calmly as it fell, watching as it shattered against the wall into several smaller pieces, all of which missed me luckily.

“You alright there mate?” I asked as I climbed up behind Fred. “Yeah” came the shaky reply.

Anyway, I talked him down off the face and made sure he was heading back to safety. He said he was OK. A bit bruised and shaken but otherwise OK, and that he would head up to the summit via the Pyg track and see his mates up there.

“Wise choice”, I thought as I continued up the wall and onto the ridge to wait for my party. One after the other they appeared up the ridge, and who should be following on behind but Fred! He had got to the base of the ridge again and changed his mind again. Despite having almost been knocked off the wall by a falling rock he was going to have another go. This time he made it on to the ridge but very very slowly.

As I made my way along the ridge I caught up with his two mates. “What’s it like further on?” asked one. “Does it get harder?”. I think walking along the ridge is harder than climbing up on to it, especially with all that exposure. They had absolutely no idea what they had let themselves in for. They hadn’t done any preparation, had no experience between them, and their bags looked as if they might just have some lunch in.

Fred eventually made it all the way along the ridge, but again very very slowly. We basically had to tell his mates that they needed to wait for him, rather than keeping up with us. They would rather have followed us than stayed with their mate! Friends huh?

We left Fred and his mates at the end of the Pinnacles and pushed on to the summit of Snowdon. It was a Saturday afternoon with good weather, so the summit was full of the gamut of humanity.

We got back to the car park at Pen-y-pass to be greeted by a group of lads getting out of their car, asking “How long to the top?”.