The first job this morning was to find all my hiking gear stored in every corner of Silverwind. Much of my thermal layers also double as sailing gear so it was a matter of ripping all my kit bags out and finding all the individual pieces.

Today’s challenge was to get to the top of Snowdon, not that Ed and I had not done this before – between us we have climbed Snowdon about 15 times! Ed was on my committee when I was chairman of the University Hiking Club and Snowdon was an annual pilgrimage for the club.

We chose to do the Watkins Path from the south of the Mountain as it is one of the least used routes, it is the hardest of the main routes and I had never got around to doing it before. We drove out to arrive at the car park at 11:00.

It was a glorious day with the sun beating down and as we stood at the foot of the Watkins Path our only concern was whether we had brought enough water.

As with most of the paths up Snowdon the path had recently been re-laid in order to control erosion. This flat trail surface gave the first mile of the route the feeling of a mountain motorway – we joked that it would not be long before one of the paths up Snowdon was fully covered in tarmac!

Watkins is one of the hardest routes mainly because it starts very low, unlike the routes that start at Pen-Y-Pass at 359m we were starting our day at only 50m above sea level.

The first stretch of the path winding through the valley between Yr Aran to the west and Y Lliwedd to the east was pretty easy going, so we knew the second half of the path was going to make up for that. As we approached the disused slate works at the head of the valley we could already see Snowdon towering up in front of us, although the top was still covering in cloud.

Taking the path to the right up the side of Y Lliwedd on a steep stone track reaching up to the Horseshoe Ridge. Once on the horseshoe we had a bit of a rest a the path flattened for a few hundred yard before cutting up the steep sloop which makes up the last 300m of the south side of the peak.

There were a large number of people on the mountain and we were spending a lot of time stopping to allow people down the path. This was nothing compared to the number of people on the top where we found some one had transported a whole city up. In this way it is always nice to get to the top of Snowdon in winter, the chances of a view might be less but at least the train is not running.

Having drunk the last of our water before making the summit we scraped together the last of our money (£1.48) to buy the cheapest drinks a café could provide. Having consumed two cartons of Ribenia we felt cheated that we had not won the “win a donkey” competition!

Now came the important discussion, how to get down the mountain and get back to the car. We had a look at the map and the best option seamed to be a route off to the Southwest towards Yr Aran. Not being a major route (at least it is not in the Tourist Brochure) it did not take us long to get clear of the crowds, in fact on the whole route we only met about 6 people! In parts the path was on grass, which made a nice change on a mountain where most of the paths are deep scars down to the bedrock.

Coming off the Summit we headed straight for Yr Aran, down the ridge turning down the valley just before Yr Aran. If had been earlier and our legs were feeling more awake I think Yr Aran would have finished the day off nicely – but today’s challenge was complete and that was for another day.

He path soon lead us back to the original “motorway” and soon back to the car. The whole route had taken just over 5 hours mainly because my legs were close to falling off on the way down!

Tea consisted of a short trip down to Llanberis and the one and only “Petes Eats” which is a must visit for anyone even passing through Snowdonia. Apart from having a nice fish tea we were able to check our email and the extensive map library upstairs in the café. The evening was spent in Pwllheli Yacht Club by the side of the marina.