Snowdon questions...

miss notax

Hello

A group of us are tackling Snowdon this weekend and we would like to try the 'up Llanberis / down Rangers' route. My questions is whether this is all marked trails / routes, or whether we need to go armed with maps etc? Also, where precisely does the Llanberis trail start from?

Our 'guide' for the day (someone who has ridden it before!) may not be able to make it now, hence I am suddenly taking an interest in the details!!

Thanks for any advice!!

milko9000

Llanberis trail starts in nearby... Llanberis! You can't really miss it, if memory serves, signs all through the village. And there's no tricky navigation on the way up, just follow the path. Can't remember Rangers enough to know if that needs anything more but I doubt there'd be map reading once you've started along the right trail.

miss notax

Brilliant, that's what I wanted to hear

Now, all I need is someone to fix the horrendous weather forecast and we'll be sorted! 8)

milko9000

Hmm, probably needless to say, but pack warm waterproof things! Even if it's nice at Llanberis it can be pretty ugly nearer the top. But have fun, it'll be a bit of an adventure I'm sure.

miss notax

Yeah, we will go fully prepared

I just wanted to check about the routes - I would hate to be one of those divvies that everyone has probably seen in the middle of no-where without a map and any clue where they are :?

It will certainly be an adventure - can't wait! It's the stuff post-ride beers are made for

miss notax

And just ordered an OS map anyway to be on the safe side

Better safe than sorry!!

x3man

Take your map and extra layers - definitely. It's a big ol' hill! Take a GPS/compass as well if you have one. If the weather closes in ("when" probably rather than "if"!) you might struggle to locate some of the paths. I presume you are doing Llanberis/Rangers/Telegraph Valley? I've not ridden that route so I'm not sure how easy it will be to find the start of the Telegraph valley bridleway (signposted apparently). There's a route map and short description here: http://hitthehills.com/2011/12/the-best ... e-snowdon/

Have a good one!

miss notax

Very good link - thanks

We will certainly be going prepared for the worst weather-wise and will definitely take a GPS and good old fashioned compass (to go with the map!). If it looks too awful I daresay we will enjoy some of the local trail centre offerings and postpone Snowdon itself - I don't mind riding in crappy weather but I have no intention of being a mountain rescue statistic!!!

delaxm

From Llanberris, go past the mountain railway, take the next right & then go straight on at the end of the road.
The Rangers peels off to the left over the railway a few hundred metres from the top when decending, the turning to Telegraph valley is on your right up a grassy bank about a mile past the lake - Caution, both these trails are easy to miss so a map is a must!

miss notax

Thank you

I have been keeping an extremely close eye on the weather the last few days, as the conditions have been terrible. The good news is that Saturday is actually looking ok so - fingers crossed - we should be good to go

Cheers for all the advice and i'll report back after our adventure!!

milko9000

On the plus side the trails aren't gonna get particularly boggy with all the rain, so if it does clear up it'll be as good as if it'd been dry all week.

DodgeT

I still say you'd enjoy llanberis up and down better, but its your call

As mentioned in your earlier route thread, rangers has very little technical ie proper gnar stuff, but does have a lot of flatish paths and telegraph is pretty much a paved decent.

When your going up, just think, would I like to be coming back down this? If the answer is yes, then do it. If the answer is no, then take rangers route.

DodgeT

If your doing rangers down...

Come down from the top, alongside the railway line. Have a look at the pyg track going off to the right, its worth a look!!

Then, you'll see the rangers going over the train track to the left. Down this, couple of scree sections, few switchbacks, about 50yds of real rocky stuff!!! Then it flattens out. All you have to contend with then are water bars which will get you if you don't hop them. Then, after a gate or 2, you need to keep your eye out for a small wooden post in the side of the bank on the right hand side.
This is where you walk/push/carry up and over, through a gate and down telegraph. Again, all you have here is water bars on a slab type path. This then joins the road, back down to town.

Either way, enjoy

delcol

hey misses n

i think it meat to be quite windy oooooop north this weekend. i know there was a weather warning of up to 60mph winds but i missed were abouts in the country it was just heard north of england mentioned. i was in the kitchen at the time making a tuna buttie..
you got to remember it's grim oooooooooooooooop north...

anyway here's a pretty good website for mountain weather.
weather
sat snowdon

delcol

if snowdon was anything like lee quarry was yesterday which i imagine it was 10 times worse. then it would of been dangerous.. it was windy as hell up in the quarry yessterday..

miss notax

Wow, what a day and...... WE MADE IT!!!

We really, really fluked it with the weather. We kept a very close eye on all the reports and made a final decision yesterday morning, when it looked like there was finally a good weather window. No rain all day, windy and worse visiblity at the summit (and even a bit of snow :shock: ), but generally sunshine and stunning views. So lucky

We rode direct from our accomodation which took about 30 mins, then up Llanberis which took about 2 1/2 hours. We all rode more than we expected (quite a lot of pushing though!) but it was flipping hard work, especially near the top. The wind picked up so much that whilst I was pushing my bike it was literally blown sideways off the ground... Finally pushed up the last bit for the obligatory photos and snack in the cafe. Then we took the Rangers and Telegraph descents.

There was quite a discusion about whether to do this or Llanberis, but in the end we decided on Rangers as there were so many walkers on Llanberis (also taking advantage of the weather window) it would have been dangerous. We also all felt that Llanberis would have been an amazing descent, but one we would have liked some body armour / full face to really enjoy it. Rangers was a good decsion as there were less walkers, but very rocky in places!!! I rode more than I expected but not the really tricky bits - again, I just felt a bit too exposed in an xc lid etc. The push up to the Telegraph descent was exhausting, but the descent the other side was fun and fast. The rain gulley things look lethal though, but were actually ok. I have no idea how long the total descent took as we then had about 4 punctures at the bottom!

In the end I am so pleased that we went for it - such an epic and we were just so unbeliveably lucky with the weather. In our group of 6 there were no injuries and we all absolutely loved it. Today was rubbish again, we intended to ride the Marin trail this morning but no-one fancied the rain and wind! Notax and I plan to go back armed with full face's etc in the summer (in the evening) to give the Llanberis descent a proper blast

Thanks for all the good advice and i'll try and post some piccies later once I work out how to get them off my iPhone!!

DodgeT

Glad you enjoyed it... and survived :cool: Did you manage to get a photo on the trig point? It was sooo windy the day we went, had to leave the bikes at the bottom of the steps and literally crawl up to the top holding onto the steps. Shame, would have loved to get a pic holding bikes above our heads.. Next time

miss notax

Ditto - we couldn't get the bikes right to the top as it was too windy. I had to crawl down as I was convinced I was going to get blown off the mountain! Was really good fun though, a proper adventure 8)