Early morning and chaos reigns in the Pen y Pass car park. Frustrated Snowdon-bound walkers jostle for limited positions, coughing and spluttering in disbelief when they realise how much they are being charged for the privilege (£10, no less, for a stay of over 4 hours!). Come the evening a more relaxed vibe is evident and this is when you might sight the lesser spotted Big G on one of his boulder hunting jaunts:

Dear NWB.com readers,

Picture the scene if you will:

Pen y Pass car park after five. But no Horse Shoe for us. We are not here to follow that sweating crowd intent upon their corrugated arc of misery, passing a myriad rocks without pause, bagging the peak whilst missing the point, returning at the days close with their feeble un-stimulated arms dangling haplessly at their sides, like ghosts departing some slow and unsatisfactory cloud-haunted thrill ride, raw footed and raven mocked.

No brothers and sisters, you are to look both ways and cross the road, lifting up thine eyes unto the distant boulders.

You have evolved!

Through the gate and up trodden paths we must venture always keeping left, ignoring the passivity of Llyn Cwmffynnon, contouring as the sheep do northwest to gr (640561) aligning ourselves with the forked stream far below as the cwms of Beudy Mawr and Uchaf begin to show themselves from a magnificent angle the ridges and peaks stretching beyond.

This is not a place to quickly appraise, the rock thrusting up in diagonal terraces each coaxing you down to its wonders, the ones beyond the harder to reach with each step of descent. You won't suss the place out in one hit. It's a cathedral not a corner shop.

The rock is endless and sound and weathered; ten bad landings for every good one. The best problems? I couldn't tell you - to find the place is one thing, to know it another.

All the best,

Big G

Relevant links: