Snowdonia National Park, Wales

Posted on January 6, 2024  •  15 minutes  • 3080 words

On our way to Snowdonia, we stopped in Portmadog for groceries and dinner items at a bakery. The hostel was in a pretty remote area and we didn’t want to have to drive if we could avoid it. We were going to be there for 4 nights, so we got food for 3 dinners, 4 lunches and 3 breakfasts, knowing we’d eat there a bit. No surprise, but we got too much. I seem to go heavy on dinner food and light on the snacks and lunches. It all worked out though.

One thing that has continuously brought me joy is the different names for whipped cream around the world. This was a true winner.

Easy and beautiful drive. We were surrounded by valleys, peaks, rivers, rolling hills and lakes. Dan and I would keep pointing something out and poor Max would say/whine “I didn’t see it.’ While the kids travel car seats are compact and easy to tote around, they don’t boost them up. It has been a running joke of Max not seeing something. But when he does…party in the car!

Our place, Pen-y-Pass YHA was literally located on a pass and directly across from the trail head to hike Mt Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales, as well as lots of other hikes. How high do you ask? A whopping 3558ft above sea level. I joke, but we didn’t make it to the top. Ice picks were required.

Anyways, we parked in the carpark opposite the hostel and were able to get to our room right away. No messing around, we dropped our stuff and headed out to just get a little walk in before it got too dark. We went about about 20 minutes, but it took all of 2 seconds to get the views. Or 0 seconds actually as the views from our window was pretty amazing too.

Kids were in their element, climbing on every rock possible, splashing in puddles, searching for anything to pick up. There were NO trees up here, so they really turned to rocks due to the lack of sticks. Still managed to load up pockets and arms and slow themselves down. So happy though.

Slow on the way back with even more wandering every which way. Once back at the place, we all gathered around to talk about our next days there and each got a beverage. Pure excitement when the kids found out i had 2 juice bottles in my pockets and they each got their own! We paid for it later a bit with the sugar rush, but worth it.

I got wine and here they offer you a small, medium or large glass. Large please. :) They even mark the glass so you know and it’s an exact pour. So much for getting a lucky big pour.

It was dark and cold, so we had an early dinner. Max gave it a thumbs up. He does this all the time and I love it. He still has the food in his mouth, so can’t really talk, but needs you to know right then that he loves it.

Max had woken up the night before screaming that he lost his something. It was such a terrifying and panicked scream and it kind of sounded like ‘dad’ that I thought he had a bad dream where Dan died. I finally got out of him that he lost his lemur. Calming him down AND finding the lemur I got him back to bed, only for it to happen 2 more times! Ugh!!! Before bed this night, I talked to him about maybe not having it in the bed so there is no risk of losing it. He came up with this solution and Sam followed suite. And it worked! No screaming bloody murder at 1am, 3am and 4am.

It was cold when we woke up and hard to convince me to get out of my warm bed. We turned the heat down too much the night before. We like to sleep cold, but don’t want to be too cold in the morning. It’s a fine line. The plan for the day was for me to take the kids hiking so Dan could work. Loaded up on the family favorite…oatmeal.

Did a bit of writing to wait for it to warm up a bit…or at least for the sun to be up a little higher, which is really impossible this high up (in latitude) in January. We left around 9:30am and had a beautiful day.

We headed down the same trail as the day before, but planned to make it to the set of lakes. Easy hike, with some minor ups and downs. Hardest part? Keeping the kids moving forward, not side to side. I decided to give up as it really didn’t matter if we only made it 1/2 mile down the trail. Kids were so happy, it was warm enough that I didn’t have to be fully moving and everywhere we were going to be was going to be beautiful.

The first lake. And as you can see from the reflection in the lake, ZERO wind. It was so magical, mainly because I was so comfortable temperature-wise. Kids tried really hard to get a rock to land in the lake, but we were a bit far.

About 1.5miles down the trail, we made it to the lakes I was hoping for. Covered in the clouds in the distant is Mt. snowdon.

We got off the main trail and walked around it about 200 yards to where there was a little part that went out into the lake a bit and it had a big rock on it. Got out the sandwiches and had lunch.

The kids would have been happy here for hours. We probably stayed over an hour, just enjoying it all and throwing rocks on the ice that was on the perimeter of the lake really never gets old. And with rocks to climb and jump off, too perfect.

Across the lake we heard some people jump in the lake. Sam immediately decides he wants to. I really don’t want to deal with a fully wet kid, but also don’t want to tell him ’no’ or I’ll be dealing with a different situation. I told him it will be freezing, he’ll be cold when he gets out, no towel and he has to take off all his clothes because he can’t wear wet underwear back. He doesn’t balk, so I decided to let him do it and hopefully call his bluff.

And it turns out I have 2 crazy children. They went into about their knees and everyone was happy. They got to ‘swim’ and I didn’t have to deal with a meltdown NOR a wet kid(s). Win-win-win

While the 2 crazies were naked and splashing in the water, my sane child figured out how to get up the giant rock.

Seeing Ben up there (something else I can do!!) was enough to get the other 2 out of the water. Ben was too cute helping them up, pulling, instructing. He got them both up!

Still a still lake and I was just going overload on the photos. My photo taking does go into overdrive when Dan’s not with us because I know he’ll want to see what we did, not just hear the overly excited kids tell him all about it. And it was warm, so I wasn’t freezing my hand off every time I pulled my phone out. More rock throwing, more ice breaking, more roaming, but finally I called it. We walked up just a bit more to see the bridge between the 2 lakes. Not so much a bridge in the typical sense, more of a man made land bridge.

The water was SO clear. Ben figured out if you ‘drop’ the rock right at water level, you don’t disturb the surface much and you can really see the rock sink far down. And I mean far down, maybe 15 feet to the bottom. You could have seen further it if was deeper…zero impurities to block or distort your view. On our way back we slowed a bit, but again, no rush. Sheep everywhere still and the kids took to trying to communicate with them. It’s not a pleasant sound from either side. All the sheep have a spray painted mark on their back. We assume it’s for knowing whose are whose, but it’s kinda funny seeing bright blue or pink spots on the white sheep.

Meandering river on our way back.

Kids found a mini waterfall that had to be fully inspected by all. Max slipped and fell in with his butt kind of stuck. Thank goodness we were close as he was pretty wet from the backside.

We got back, told Dan about the hike and the kids lasted a whole 10 minutes before they asked Dan to take them out again. I got some chill time and rewarded myself with a beer that pretty much looked just like what we had hiked.

Everyone back and the kids found some puzzles and other games to play a bit before dinner time.

As soon at that sun goes down, you can feel the coldness even when you are inside and warm. Sounds weird, but you can get sense it I guess. I figured that called for soup for dinner.

The next day was my day to work and Dan took the kids on a hike. They came back bursting at the seams to tell me all about it…and to ask me if I wanted to go check out the lake they went to yesterday with Dan after our hike. I had been working in bed all day because my back was really acting up, so I needed to get out. Max opted out as his legs were SO tired. We stepped out and it was SO much colder than yesterday, mainly because of the wind. This is the view 3 steps out the front door…literally at the pass.

Kids led the way and I just followed. There was a path for a bit, but then nothing really. Ben was so excited to show me how you would step on frozen grass and it would slowly sink about a foot. He was right…lots of crunching on half dead/have frozen grass.

We went straight up, crested a hill and got a view of the lake. The sky was crazy pretty and Sam was doing something here. NOT cold of course.

It was weird, when you looked at the lake from far away it looked black. When you stood over it and looked down, clear as can be. I really wanted to say ‘clear as not mud’ since there was mud everywhere else, but really just perfectly clear.

Sun was setting, as it was already 4pm! Sky was all sorts of colors, but I was starting to freeze as I was not running around like a dog in a new place needing to smell everything. Yes, pretty much what the kids were doing. ‘Mom come here!’ ‘Mom! Look at this!’ ‘Mom! You HAVE to see this!!’

We got back and attempted to defrost. We did some reading and then Dan ordered us some sweet potato fries to hold us over before we all decided what we wanted for dinner.

All happy with full tummies and the hostel was still rocking the Christmas tree.

Max’s dinner came with salad and he loved it, even though he thought some of the pieces were too big. Although, this was usually only communicated ONCE the said pieces were already in his mouth.

The next day we decided was going to be the day that we did the big loop in the park. I actually didn’t want to go because it was SO windy. Kids were not going to let that happen. I can handle cold, or so I think, but the wind was brutal. Well, with the wind was also the cold. Everything was frozen, including any puddle, big or small, on the path.

Do not be confused by the bright blue sky, it was cold.

To be fair we did warm up moving, but it was never my core or legs that were cold. I was prepared. We even had a competition of who had the most layers. I won for socks with 2, Max won for hoods with 3, Sam won for pants with 3 (clearly an accident knowing Same), Dan won for tops with 5. We all lost for face coverings with ZERO.

Even the mud was frozen, but the way it froze it left really cool patterns. And in some places where it froze, the water below sunk into the ground after the top had frozen, so it was spanning between the side of the mud…or some had collapsed in. Ice, very low bending stress.

By some miracle, considering the amount of ice and how much we went up and down, no one fell! Max was constantly yelling ‘I can do it myself!’ Ugh

We made it to the ridge, came down a bit, got slapped with even more wind, but got a great view.

Sometimes you had a gate and sometimes you had little ladders…so you could pass but the sheep couldn’t. Fights about who got to open the gate, sometimes they all opened and closed it themselves, and fights about who got to go over first. At least this one had 2 ladders. This one seemed to be a bit out of commission as the fences weren’t continuous on both sides.

Dan and I did a trip with friends to Torres del Paine in 2010 (maybe?). I still remember how a lot of the peaks there looked like frosted mini wheats the way they were just (yes) frosted with snow. I remember those mountains so vividly and this reminded me so much of them. The mountain sort of covered in a cloud…Mt. Snowdon is behind that.

We really do try to get family photos every once in a while, but I swear when one kids head comes back into view, another one disappears.

More frozen stuff. The surface was completely frozen, and pretty thick in parts we found out, but you could hear water flowing below. More trickling through were possible, than just a rush. Like one of those rain sticks.

Came around a corner to see even more. It really looked cool. You think it’s a waterfall, but it’s just ice.

Kids were getting hungry (Dan too) but we really wanted to be out of the wind for it. We sort of found a place and begged the kids to eat fast.

Sam found rocks that he wanted to take with him. I told him we couldn’t since we were in a national park and we settled on a photo. How his hands weren’t frozen I don’t know. Mine would freeze in the 8 seconds it took me to get my phone out and take a photo.

We got to the mid part of the loop where part of the trail continued up to Mt. Snowdon. We opted to NOT do this part. Ben was SO upset, almost to the point of tears that we had to turn around before the top. This one is my kid…also the one that didn’t strip down to jump in a frozen lake. I felt terrible because I get it, but it was just too cold, too icy and I didn’t want to split up and have just him and Dan go. The ’trail’ was so icy and rocky and Ben just hung back as he tried to get over it. It took about 9 minutes. Sam was basically running down ice/rock.

We made it down the steep icy part to the top lake and got a little bit of flat walking, which was greatly appreciated.

Along side the lake were old mining buildings. We think they were mining for cooper, but not positive. We also saw layers of quartz, so Ben thought gold, but we found no gold

Views never got old. Freezing wind? Yes, that got old.

More of ’everything is frozen’ photos.

Kids love icicles, no surprise there. They were pulling them off with their bare hands. Sam even tried to carry one back for quite a while. I finally made him drop it, worried his hands would be painful, but nope. A few minutes later he showed me how his hands were fine. They were piping hot! Ben’s too, all the time! Whenever I say my hands are cold (and I have super warm fuzzy thick pockets) they pull theirs out and put them on my face. Always warm!

The last 15 minutes were kind of brutal. Max had to poop so he and Dan powered ahead and Sam was dragging a bit. Finally made it back and defrosted with lattes and hot chocolates.

The cold had really sucked the energy out of us. It wasn’t a long hike in terms of miles, but every step was though about. I guess you could describe it as mentally hard hiking more than physically hard. Probably only 5 miles, but it felt much longer. We had an early dinner and long night of reading. Sam finished reading half of the first Harry Potter book (we go back and forth reading paragraphs or he and Ben do, so the book was read completely) so we got to finish the rest of the movie.

The next morning we checked out, loaded up the car but then hung out in the dining area to get school work and adult work done. We found at the hostels in the hiking areas, NO ONE is there during they day and if we were, we had the place to ourselves. And another reason to love the hostels is all kids can have their own table to work and not distract the others…as it happens all the time and we end up spreading around the house.

I had a view from where I sat to where they were playing outside. We ended up staying quite a while and eve

They were allowed to go up the mountain a bit, if they stayed together and sent a messenger back every 5 minutes to give me a wave or a thumbs up. It was so cute to see one come bounding down, give a huge smile and wave and run back up.