CLIMBING SNOWDON: PART 1

10:00am. I left the house feeling, if anything, summery. It wasn’t too cold, and the Autumn breeze flapped at my shirt and lightweight zipper jacket. The sun was bright behind the thick clouds, more like a mid-August sky than a September one. I supposed the weather on top of the mountain might be different.

I slipped the front door keys into my sports bag, slung my rucksack over both shoulders, camelbak pipe looping into the pocket like a Ghostbusters backpack, and strode out to the road, ready for adventure.

-

9:30pm. “Has anyone checked the forecast for tomorrow?” asked somebody around the table. Steve checked it. 99% chance of rain. We’ve all adopted a sort of ‘what will be will be’ attitude it seems. I think we’ll get wetter than we’ll end up caring about somehow.

The journey was okay. Showers were interspersed with sunshine, and towards the end, while we were winding along Welsh roads of grey slate and rain-washed villages, the setting sun was properly shining.

I like the way the sun catches the hills on evenings such as these. Long shadows fell across rounded green slopes, rock faces glinted, and sheep wandered aimlessly through the glistening evening. It was all very pleasant. In the distance, dark mountain peaks were shrouded in mist and cloud, like a sign.

“It’d be lovely if it were like this tomorrow,” said Rachel. Indeed it would.

-

We arrived just after the rain.

Our base camp is a cottage, big enough for twelve, but not with twelve bedrooms. Also not quite big enough for any one of us to escape the sound of all the others. It’s so strange this situation - colleagues and their partners, the awkward politeness of relative strangers, colleagues who would never be friends. I understand why alcohol works its magic, I think. Though it’s not for me.

-

10:13pm. I’m ready for sleep now. Earlier, as the hills and mountains of North Wales flashed by the sunlit, rain-specked window, I started to wonder what it would be like to be out walking up them. And then I remembered that tomorrow we’d be climbing one that’s much taller than all of these. Over a thousand metres of mountain, probably snow-capped, probably wind-ravaged, probably craggy, probably difficult.

I really hope I’ll be alright.

Meanwhile, below, in the kitchen, my colleagues laugh to the music of chinking glasses. I worry about being selfish, then close my eyes to the white noise of their chatter. 

Climbing Snowdon: Part 2 >>