IT was all somehow inevitable. The evening was mild and moonlit, the weather showed no signs of breaking. We had had but a short day’s climbing and only one more day remained of the Christmas meet. I for one had an urge to enjoy the luxurious feeling that there would be no more of the tension of climbing this time. Once someone had suggested that he walk the fourteen ’three thousands" it would have been hard to have stayed behind.
No amount of exhortation seemed to stir the others – "finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark"; one had indigestion, others thought it a good idea for later, and some had a date with Bochlwyd Buttress. So just before 10 o’clock Trevor and I set out from Glandena, hoping to walk the six Carnedds in time for an early breakfast back at the hut. The night was almost oppressively warm as we tramped up the flanks of Pen yr Oleu-wen above Llyn Ogwen. Even stripped down to my shirt I sweated hard until we broke onto the eastern ridge and a small cool wind breathed across the deep black pool of the curn above Ffynnon Lloer. The moon, with only one day to wax, shone strongly through a patchy mackerel sky, flooding spires and peaks with silver light and leaving valleys in deep, seemingly bottomless shadow. Once we were on the cairn of Pen yr Oleu-wen we could see dearly the long ridge running along and up to Carnedd Llewellyn, the patterns of Bethesda’s and Bangor’s lights below, and all Anglesey laid out like a map beyond to the south Snowdon stood out, a dark and distant shape against the sky.
We followed the ridge, feeling trespassers in this still, mysterious world. We almost felt we had to whisper. A fine walk over Carnedd Dafydd and then we followed the rough path up the vast swell of Llewellyn. There we had to strike down off our main line towards Yr Elen, which appeared deceptively close in the moonlight, perhaps its craggy silhouette struck the mind after the flowing rhythm of the other Carnedds. We stumbled down over loose rock and then retraced our steps at length and cut an irritating traverse across small stones to avoid Llewellyn. After Yr Elen the last two peaks, Foel Grach and Foel Fras, were heaves on a wide rounded ridge. It was a long dull trudge enlivened only by the occasional bog and then the appearance of four still figures in sharp shadow against the sky; which, upon tentative inspection, proved to be only large slates supporting a wire fence. At last on Foel Fras we rested in the curious wilderness of small stones, observed the sea and set off to return almost the way we had come.
When we finally came to Craig Llugwy, between Llewellyn and Dafydd, our labours were rewarded by a strange sight. Tryfan had changed. Almost inevitably Tryfan has a place of honour in my mountain mythology; it is more than a mountain, a sort of pagan altar, a primeval place rooted in the past. Now it was showing its other self, that part of its personality repressed in the day and only visible by the moon. For Tryfan was standing alone as a dwarfed shadow, sharp, black, incongruous, a foreign eminence wandered from some underworld into a strange, silver universe. Towards this sinister presence we ran and stumbled beside a restless stream until, just before five, we reached the hut.
An hour and a half of cooking and eating, and we set off again, now up the familiar slopes of the north ridge of Tryfan. It was that melancholy, desperate hour before dawn and colder than before. I knew my full stomach would pay dividends eventually, but at the time it was an embarrassment, while Trevor was really in pain. As at last we reached Adam and Eve a slow dawn spread a lurid red gash under an ugly black lid of cloud. But fresh hope and energy came with the slight sun and we tackled Bristly Ridge and walked over the Glyders, perhaps the most exhilarating part of the whole day. By the time we reached the top of the Devil’s Kitchen it was clear that my advice to Trevor to eat until he felt sick had worked out too literally. He was not at all well, but he managed to make his way back to Glandena.
It was now getting on for 11 o’clock, and I was determined to finish before dark if I could, so I struck up to Y Garn, the tenth peak and then down through a slope of sheep to the wide circuit ridge of the Afon Dudodyn valley. After a struggle up to Elidir Fawr it was a long slanting run down over shale and grass towards Nant Peris, leaving the ungainly geometry of the Dinorwic slate mines to the right. Walls, animals, house, a track and then the road; a depressing walk up the valley past respectable Welshmen (it was Sunday) and smells of cooking.
Having no clear idea of good routes for Snowdon I made up Cwm Glas. This part seemed long, and there was a great deal of loose scree. At last, breaking up to the right of the Cwm, I found the railway. There was a strong cross wind, and I was stopping more often now. When I finally reached the summit it was covered in cloud and sprinkled with Boy Scouts. Only two peaks remained. "You will know Crib Goch by the trig. point," said the Boy Scouts. But when I had stumbled over Crib y Ddisgl and was floundering over the towers of Crib Goch I could not find one. The cloud was thicker and the successive crests seemed higher and higher. On the last tower, having drawn a blank, I looked back and it seemed as I looked that I had missed the highest point, and the mythical trig point with it. But it was now 4 o’clock, so in angry frustration I ate the piece of William’s coconut ice that I had been saving up for the fourteenth peak and was surprised how little there was. The irritation of having, as I supposed, missed the summit of Crib Goch, of being too tired to go back, and of having to hurry down before it was dark, overwhelmed everything. The loose scree running out over small rock outcrops was almost the last straw, and I missed the Pig track and ended up with dusk on the track beside Llyn Ilydaw. The curling walk down to Pen-y-Pass was curiously lighthearted and detached; rocks and shadows seemed to be people and animals, motionless and waiting under the full moon.
A lift took me down to the P-y-G where illicit temptation was just resisted; and then, halfway to Capel, a Good Samaritan picked me up, fed me sandwiches and took me right round to Glandena to one of William’s good meals, and bed. It was a providential end to a most rewarding walk under almost perfect conditions. I hope others, not wholly obsessed with motor cars or the Munich, will try it and enjoy it as much as I did.