I headed to Snowdonia with two friends I met doing Everest Base Camp last October to complete our Mountain Skills 2 course together. We drove over and got the ferry to Holyhead as it was the easiest option with all our gear! We went with @fiamountaineering who I did my MS1 in the Comeraghs with, and I couldn’t recommend Cormac enough! MS2 involves night navigation and difficult terrain navigation.

Day 1 we navigated up Snowdon. We were treated to magnificent views thanks to the weather and got to capture the most beautiful sunset.

There was snowfall on the mountain when we went up and it was a bit slippy in parts. We then continued navigating through the dark on our decent, with the use of our compasses and maps. This was overall about 10 hours of hiking 😅 which I throughly enjoyed.

There is a cafe and bathrooms on top of Snowdon which were shut when we were up there due to snow. You can access Snowdon via train (all weather dependent). The tracks where originally built for the mines but now gets used by tourists bringing people up. Half of the train was operating the day we hiked up and as it was a bank holiday weekend, it was quite busy!

Day 2 was traversing hard terrain. We hiked up Tryfan, a scramblely, hard hike. A popular one for rock climbing! This includes routes that have grade 1 scrambling, which we ended up deciding not to take due to high winds. Looking up at it was a bit intimidating but I throughly enjoyed the light scrambling over rocks. The descent down was in definite need of walking poles due to scree and rocks. We were out on the mountain for approximately 6 hours.

Tips and tricks
-Hand warmers: it got cold with the wind and during night nav these were essential!
-Pack spare batteries for your head torch.
-Careful where you park in Snowdonia! A lot of these locations don’t have service and they tow your car away if you park in a non designated spot!
-Full support hiking boots are essential for these hikes.

Products used
-Meindl Bhutans GTX
-Expedition 4 compass
-Lowe Alpine 35/45L bag
-Rab Cirrus Flex 2.0 Insulated Hooded Jacket
-Led Lensor MH4 headtorch
-Rab Capacitor Hoody - Orion Blue
-Eco stretch buff
-H/H lifa merino midweight crew baselayer
-Icebreaker 200 Oasis crew baselayer