Back in January a friend and I decided to take a little trip to Snowdonia, Wales. We stayed at a little B&B in the town of Llanberis, close to Mt. Snowden. A small little hiking town with not a lot going on in the evenings, due to the fact we chose the one month everything is closed as its out of season, great planning Charlie.

After the drive, when we arrived there wasn't much daylight time left. So we decided to go for a general wonder without a camera just to see what was around and to stretch our legs from being in the van for a few hours. Walking through town to see most things closed being a Sunday evening, making our way towards Castell Dolbadarn. Castell Dolbadarn if you didn’t know was a castle set on a hill on the edge of town. As you can tell I’m not a history teacher so I’m not going to act like one. Explore the area around making our walk up the stairs and onto a wooden balcony. By this time it was raining and this made walking up the slippery spiral staircase to the top fun in the dark. You get a really nice view from the top just a shame your in a birdcage essentially. Nothing much more interesting that evening that just having a beer in a nearby Inn before our early start in the morning.

Monday we started our day off right, full english breakfast complementary of Idan house, which is where we were staying for our duration in Wales. Would recommend for anyone wanting a good/cheap B&B. At breakfast the owner told us about a waterfall to check out on the other side of town. It’s always good to ask locals places to see. So that’s where we started our day. The waterfall was called Ceunant Mawr Waterfall, tucked behind a housing estate. I wouldn’t complain about having that near my back garden for sure. We followed a trail taking us up the top and along the train track of the Snowden train. We really had no idea where we were going and to were to go. We climbed down a ridge near the top of Ceunant Mawr Waterfall, nearly slipping many times. Chilled there for a moment and decided to follow the train track, our logic was this goes up Snowdon and its out of season so we wouldn’t get hit by a train, which is always good I guess. The weather wasn’t the best, as we ascended we noticed that visibility was poor. Considering we wasn’t even far up Snowdon and it was already thick fog for a few meters ahead we decided to find a path and walk back. The Path turned out to be Llanberis Path, which would take you to Snowdon. Failing due to weather we went back to check out the base of Ceunant Mawr Waterfall. We saw ledges at the bottom from the top earlier so we just had to work out how to get there. It was very wet believe it or not, being a waterfall and all that. I was very thankful for wearing hiking boots. The mud was great...... not. After we decided to go see Castell Dolbadarn in the light and with a camera. Actually being able to see things was better than the night before. One of the strangest things was we suddenly started hearing spiritual music from nowhere as we were in the staircase. Was just a random group of people having a look and trying to get into a nature vibe I guess. From the castle we looked across the Llyn Peris Lake to see this massive slate looking mountain, which looked like an idea to climb. As you can tell by this time we did a lot of walking. Our next stop was this Slate looking mountain.

Under the mountain was a massive power station, which was a very weird thought. But we were more interested in seeing what’s up the mountain. Following this slate made path up, we came across a section that was damaged and a dirt detour, which led us to 5 mountain goats. They were some mean looking dudes with horns, which were like a meter long and they didn’t seem happy to see us, so very cautiously we walked around them until they ran away. Death by goat pushing me off a cliff was not on our itinerary. We walked past old derelict buildings, which used to be some pully system for carts up the mountain as well as a mill and a row of small buildings. Passers-by said there wasn’t much up there as they were walking back, so after a while we decided to head back. Clumsy me decided to slip down a large slab of wet slate straight onto my camera backpack. Safe to say I was more worried about my camera than the fact I got a swollen finger and a busted ankle. Luckly nothing seems to have broken as of yet, touch wood. On the upside we got a great view of Llyn Peris Lake. So limping back down the path my friend decided he wanted to check out the Slate museum. Now I can safely say that was one of the most boring experiences of my life. Stuff like that just isn’t my cup of tea. We then decided to head back and explore by van. Country roads by transit are always a great idea.

We had no idea where we were going. We would literally see a hill and be like lets get up there. As you could probably guess, it wasn’t always a good plan. Getting shots of the hilly landscapes and driving around random roads wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening. One of the funniest parts were we took a turn onto the narrow single road along a massive drop, no way of turning round and must have been driving for about 10 minutes down this one road. Then we saw a gate and was lucky enough for it to be unlocked for us to get out but it could have been much worst. All in all, a good first proper day exploring.

Read Part 2 for more on the trip.

-Charlie Bluck