It was a beautifully sunny day in April and not too hot either. We shared the drive down to Cardiff and arrived to parked cars lining the side of the road all the way to our destination car park at the bottom of the route we were taking. We'd decided on the Watkins path after spending the entire evening before learning everything we could about the routes. Despite learning everything we could about the routes, we didn't really heed the warnings of how challenging this route would be. We're regulars at the gym, but lifters not cardio bunnies, so I should have anticipated the difficulties we would encounter. 

We began around 11am with a fairly steady climb with lots of other walkers. Due to how late we'd left Nottingham, it wasn't long before I wanted to pull over for some snacks - and where better to stop than with the view of a waterfall?

After a short break we were back on track and trundling up the hills. The sun was blazing and it was a beautiful day, on our pitstop to put on some suncream Michael caught the sight of this little guy out of the corner of his eye. He's got such a sharp eye for wildlife and I honestly don't know how he managed to see this lizard, let alone catch him!

The walk continued and I can honestly say I struggled. As I said before I'm not the type for doing cardio so this really did come as a shock to me. I know I'm not good at it, but I thought maybe all my weightlifting had given me more overall fitness - that was silly of me. Michael trekked on at his own pace for much of the walk which was fine by me. Half way up we started chatting to two guys, one  who was named Jeremy had been climbing Snowdon with his Dad almost everyday since he was 7. The other lad was doing it for the first time like us which made us feel a little better about choosing the most difficult route! Jeremy, the more experienced one of the two, told us what was to come; a steep scramble up to the top very close to the heart wrenching edge of the mountain. We knew this already from studying the route, but he really did knock our confidence a little. 

Once the top started to come into view, we could see the amount of scree lining our climb and Michael, who has a fear of heights, was feeling a little less sure of himself. I on the other hand was quite impressed I'd already come this far. Climbing would give me the chance to put my muscles into practice, and without a fear of heights I was ready for the challenge. So we began our climb to the top.

At what we thought was the top, we breathlessly said hello to the two chaps we'd previously been walking with. Jeremy, with his experience and his friend, who was quite clearly built for cardio (and who's name we never actually caught) had long abandoned us due to our (my) slower pace, but they met us with a clap when we fell to our feet on the mountain and grabbed a cereal bar beside them. I think they were particularly impressed we'd managed it with no experience. We felt elated for a short moment in our exhaustion, until we turned around and saw that we still had a little way to go.

After coming down from the top of the summit, we took in the view for as long as we could. 

Whilst many chose to use The Watkins Path to head back down the mountain, Michael and I really dislike travelling on the same route to get back to our starting point so we waited for a short while for Jeremy's group to join us from the summit, and decided to make our way back down on what was most of The Llanberis Path. I say most of because we certainly diverted on a few occasions and some parts of the descent were more difficult than the ascent. The Llanberis Path is described as one of the easier routes to the top, so we quite quickly realised we'd probably lost that path. We found ourselves walking on the knife edge of the mountain with terrifying drops either side of us. Again, Michael and Jeremy weren't feeling too great about this route but we'd committed and we had navigators and a map or two. 

After the fine rocky line we had trekked we crab walked down flat rocks and continued on a very bumpy route. 

With a fair few stops and a long time spent soaking in the view, it took us between 6-7 hours. Being the organised people we are, we hadn't yet found a campsite and we'd also forgotten our BBQ. Unsuprisingly, Wales has very little signal but Jeremy gave us directions to a village where he was sure we could find our way to a shop for a BBQ and a campsite on from there. Wonderously, we found both and put our tent up as the sun came down. 

Personally, I felt like absolute rubbish when I came down from Snowdon. The descent was knackering but I managed it, though as soon as the tent was up it all hit me. I gathered quickly that it was dehydration more than anything else, so top tip, don't be self-conscious about taking a nature pee and focus on staying hydrated instead.

All in all, it was a great trip and necessary for us to do before moving on to Machu Picchu. Admittedly, I am worried about the trip to Peru as I'm not confident we've done the amount of preparation we should have done. Nonetheless, Snowdon definitely provided us with a challenge and I'd highly recommend it. If you like a challenge, the Watkins Path was certainly that but there's plenty of other routes to the top!

MissIsGoode