My Millennium Eve Experience on Snowdon

          Things weren't exactly going as planned as I made my way up the Pyg track at just after midnight on Millennium eve. My 'lone man against the mountain' theme had been dented by the Pen y Pass car park being full,  and the well trodden paths ability to disappear in the flat light of my Petzl. As the firework display thundered from the coast I conquered my nerves and got on with it.

            Further up the path I was startled by a strange figure sat in the darkness. The nervous sounding man was in his late thirties, his walking kit was rather strange, street jacket and Day-Glo pink road workers trousers, from the flapping bottoms of which poked what looked suspiciously like Cuban heeled Chelsea boots. His white moustache was explained by his unusual choice of drinks bottle, a 2 liter container of milk. Night suddenly turned to a rather pantomime day as he turned on his torch, a huge yellow Bakelite oblong thing with carry handle and what seemed like a mile long beam. No he wasn’t camping, yes he was going to the top but he wasn’t in a hurry. Just as well I thought as I stumbled on, my night vision well and truly ruined. Twenty or so people passed me on their way down the mountain with promises of gale force winds on the col, but we seemed to be the only people going up the Pyg Track.

Further on at the zigzag  path section things were becoming more serious. The path was covered in icy snow and below it the snow disappeared steeply into an inky blackness. As I readied my ice axe and strapped on my crampons my thoughts turned to Chelsea boots and a hand held torch. He was still reasonably close behind me. I could hear him gasping for breath and there were occasional lightening bolts as he scanned the surrounding peaks awakening Spring flowers and foreshortening hibernations. With a sigh I settled down to wait for him.

One and a half hours later we sat in the lee of the icy summit cairn the first men up the Pyg track in the new millennium, me with nerves shot to ruin, him with a celebratory moustache decorating a huge grin. The promised gale had moved on. Doss bags littered the train platform and a few lights could be seen approaching up the Llanberis and Miners tracks. I had to go, Scafell Pike and then the Ben were next in my own adventure. My departure was hastened however as a companionable silence was broken by his question 'Has anyone ever talked to you about God?'

RL.