In today's Western Mail, the first Snowdonia rescue of 2019, has been a walker who got lost at the summit of Snowdon on New Years Eve.
He went fully equipped, and made the summit, but LIKE ME, lost his bearings at the summit, and ventured way off track.
He recounts how many people actually turned around at Clogwyn, seeing the very heavy mist, and decided it was not wise to continue to the top.
By the looks of it, he used the main Clogwyn llanberis path route, and not the railway line and somehow managed to navigate to the summit, but got horribly lost on his way down.
Without the aid of the railway lines back down the mountain, and knowing their whereabouts from a pea soup summit, then i would have joined him, but i lost my bearings for a few moments, even though i roughly knew where i was, but thankfully, stayed calm, and figured out that the safety of the nearby railway was off to my immediate left.
He was very apologetic to the Mountain Rescue team who eventually located him with their rescue dog in the early hours of New year, and even wrote to them personally to thank them.
Conditions were pretty poor, but the temperature and wind conditions were almost ideal.
Just after New year arrived, there was some rain, which thankfully i missed, but i can remember being just a few minutes from Half Way House as midnight turned, with a man from Liverpool named Ian, so i must have missed the change in weather conditions.
Had it not been for the railway line, i would have turned back as well, but walking up Snowdon in such poor visibility, in the darkness, does pose a serious risk.
