Last Sunday saw me complete my favourite route around Wales, Britain's and perhaps the world's busiest Mountain. Its estimated around half-a-million people make the pilgrimage to its summit every year by a variety of means, walking, scrambling, climbing, mountain biking or performing a variety of stuns and challenges to raise money for charity. Your pretty much guaranteed to see something memorable when you ascend it. Be it someone pushing a sprout up it with their nose, racing to complete the national three peaks challenge or walking up it barefoot, ot name but three.
It also splits the hill-walking community down the middle. Many who head to the hills to escape the rat-race consider the cafe at the top and the railway that serves it an abomination. The crowds of tourists that snake their way up its busiest paths the very antithesis of the things they go hill-walking for, peace, solitude, wilderness.
The mountain is of course Snowdon (or in Welsh Yr Wyddf), set in the heart of Snowdonia (Know in Welsh as Eryri and, depending on which translation you believe, the place of eagles or simply the high place). A mountain of such complexity no one can really agree on its name or the best route up it.
Snowdon is believed to derive from the old English or Saxon for 'Snow Hill'. While Yr Wyddf means simply the tumulus, which may refer to the cairn thrown over the legendary giant Rhitta Gawr, slain by King Arthur. Snowdon is also reputed to be the final resting place of Arthur, Excalibur and his knights. Not to mention Afanc (a water monster) and the Tylwyth Teg (fairies).
My route by-passed all of this, taking the quietest, and for many, the most scenic route to the summit, the Rhyd-Ddu Path. Walking the stunning ridge of Llechog and Bwlch Main, overlooking the hanging valley of Clwm Clogwyn, before joining the south ridge to reach the summit. Then descending via the oldest route up the mountain, the Ranges Path, skirting the great cliffs of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu down the oppose flank of Cwm Clogwyn.
Just below the hanging valley the path passes above Llyn ffynnon-y-gwas, a reservoir. It translates into English as “the lake of the servant’s spring” and it is thought that it was named after a shepherd who drowned in its waters while washing his master’s sheep. While we'll never know if this is the case the remains of an old stone sheepfold can be seen at the northern end of the lake or Llyn.
It was here, overlooking the lake, I noticed what appeared to be two large objects moving across it just below the surface leaving ripples in their wake. As per any good story of this sort they disappeared before I could get my camera out. While I'm pretty sure It was just an interplay of lighting and wind rippling across the Llyn I decided not to linger. Although, as it appears on several wild swimming databases, I doubt Afanc's descendants live here.
The final element that inspired the story is a report this week that Australian physicists appear to have conducted an experiment that indicates time is not a linear progression of past, present, future and that future events can seemingly influence the past.