New Year's walk

The plan was to start the year with a walk. It would only be the three of us; Martin had visitors and wasn't available. And strangely enough, the weather seemed suitable for a hike on New Year’s Day. Sue and Dean suggested a loop over the Glyders. That sounded great! And I made sure I would have cake. Sue made sure she had pizza.

We parked below Tryfan, and walked up to Llyn Bochlwyd, where I had done my last camping adventure of the old year. It was nice weather. And we continued to the pass between Tryfan and Glyder Fach. From there we took the route I had accidentally not taken the last time. It was the sensible route! And along the way we sat down somewhere to have a hot drink and cake. And that turned out to be a very good idea, as we figured it would be windy on the ridge. And it was! It also got wintry and foggy. This wasn't weather in which to sit down for a break. It was beautiful! But bracing. So we kept walking.

Sunny views early on

Panorama by Dean

On Glyder Fawr it was quite icy. We were careful! We also decided against posing on the cantilever. But when we got to the plateau above the infamous scree slope down to Llyn y Cŵn, the situation improved. It wasn't icy anymore, and the clouds broke up. We could see the lake below us! And the wind abated as well.

Walkers in the mist: GIF by Dean

On the ridge; pic by Dean

Descending the scree slope

When we got to the bottom of the slope we sat down for a rather late lunch. We had surely earned it! And the pizza was really good. 

When we got up for the last stretch it started raining. And it also got somewhat windy again. We descended Devil’s Kitchen, which is beautiful, and got to the more or less flat bit. That was quite calm, be quite wet. We even dug out the picture I had taken a year and a day ago, as we had ended 2022 with just a walk around Cwm Idwal. We took a new one on the exact same location. I had the picture in my hand in the new picture, to create some Droste effect. 

I liked the pic Dean took of me taking a picture more than the pic I took there

Droste effect with NYE 2022 picture; pic by Dean

It turned out we had been protected by the valley. As soon as we took the path back to the road, we were hit in the face quite hard by rain and wind. It was quite uncomfortable to do the last km or so! We were glad we were back at the car. And drove back through pretty horrendous weather.

We had basically had three seasons in a walk only 13 km long. We started in spring, walked straight into winter, and came back in autumn. That's most of the year already done on the first day! 

I think a first day with good friends and beautiful landscapes, and even with good food, is a very good start of the year. Bring on the rest of it!