Communion Of Dreams

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.

Some years back my wife Martha and I climbed Snowdon. This trip, my brother-in-law Steven and niece Haley decided that they wanted to do it. But being somewhat more into hiking than I ever was, they wanted to try a more adventurous path than we used, and consulted with an outdoors shop owner in Dolgellau they had made friends with to see what he recommended. After discussion, they decided on the Rhyd Ddu Path, which they were told would take between 2:30 and 3:00 hours for hikers in good shape to do.

So after keeping an eye on the weather, they decided to tackle it on Thursday morning of our second week in Wales. We dropped them off at the trailhead in the small town of Rhyd Ddu:

Snowdon in the distance.

My sister Celeste, Martha, and I took a leisurely drive over to Llanberis, where we’d arranged to take the Snowdon Mountain Railway (SMR) up Yr Wyddfa. The timing on this was a little tricky: your ticket for up and back only allows a 30 minute stay on top of the mountain. And our plan was to meet Steven and Haley there, and to have them get stand-by tickets to take the train back down with us … if there were any. Because there frequently aren’t, and they’re only sold on a ‘as available’ basis. One additional possible complication: even under the best conditions, the weather on top of Snowdon is very changeable, and the SMR will only go to the very top (where the station is) if visibility it clear. 

But Steven and Haley were confident that they could do the hike in the time allotted, and if worst came to worst, they could also hike back down and we could then pick them up.

So, we drove to Llanberis, enjoying some sight-seeing along the way:

Snowdon is the peak in the middle.

Well, the plans worked perfectly. Steven and Haley made it to the top of Snowdon in just 2:15, and got their names on the top of the stand-by list. The train made it all the way to the top, where we joined them at the Hafod Eryri, the station/visitor’s center which was new since the last time I had been to the top.

The path heading up from the lake is the Miner’s Path, which Martha and I climbed previously. The one above it is the PYG Track, which is the way we went back down.

Yeah, it’s that wonderful. You should go sometime.

One the way back to the cottage we stopped at Cymer Abbey, just outside Dolgellau. Cymer is a late 12th century Cistercian ruins, but still quite charming:

The next day we decided to visit one of my very favorite places in Wales: Castell-y-Bere. It’s one of the native Welsh castles, dating back to about 1220, and was brilliantly designed to take advantage of the natural features of the site, as can be seen in this image of the ruins on CADW’s site:

You can see a rendering of what the castle may have looked like in the information plaque there at Castell-y-Bere:

And here are more images from our visit, but I would also recommend the Castle Wales entry.

After a nice long visit at Castell-y-Bere, we stopped off at the entrance to the Minffordd Path up to the summit of Cadair Idris and had a pleasant late lunch at the Tŷ Te Cadair Tea Room. I love this tree-shaded little road leading up to it:

It was a good day.

Jim Downey