The Linear Motor Project

finding it hard to look down on either side, I looked at the sky and wished for the sanctuary of flat ground instead. However, the other members of the party were already walking along the ridge, so I had little

chance but to follow.

Halfway along the ridge three pinnacles of rock block the path of the intrepid walker. We managed to find a way round the first two, to my relief, but at the third our leader found an "interesting" route over the top, and it was not till we reached the safety of the other side that

we read the guide book, advising the likes of us to leave the last of

the three pinnacles to the experts. Confidence thus boosted, we marched on over easier, but none the less impressive terrain, round the top curve of "the horseshoe", till we reached the track of the mountain railway

from Llanberis, which we followed to the summit.

It was only when we paused there for lunch, that one was able to appreciate the majesty of the mountain. The day was as clear as only a crisp spring sun can make it, and the brightness of the snow made everything twice as sharp. The interior of "the horseshoe", shaded by the steep walls of rock which form the Snowdon range, looked dark and foreboding, while the outer slopes led down and away to a gentler landscape. I still claim I could see the southern tip of Cardigan Bay.

The homeward journey brought us along the southern rim of the horseshoe—Bwlchysaethau and Y Lliwed if you have your Ordnance Survey maps handy—and when we reached the end of the ridge, we turned down off the top, round the eastern end of Llyn Llydaw Reservoir,

back to the bus and home to a well-earned supper, superbly prepared—.

from packet and tin—by Messrs. Perks and Hamilton, Barnes and Green. ' By contrast, on our next day low cloud and drizzle predominated, turning periodically to an uncomfortable mixture of snow, sleet and hail. Tryfan,

Glyder Fach, Glyder Fawr and The Devil's Kitchen were our programme,

but we never saw much of any of them. Tryfan rises very steeply, a hard ragged pillar of rock, cutting away sharply on all sides the higher you go. There was a path to the top—at least there was on the map— but I think we must have lost sight of it early on. Before long, as we headed into the cloud, the ground to right and left of us seemed to drop away more sharply, and as a blizzard blew up into our faces. we found ourselves scrambling up a gully, which no self-respecting path I would have considered climbing. Luckily there was enough snow to make footholds and handholds from, and we clambered to the top only to find that the route ahead involved a treacherous traverse across a near-vertical snow-face to another gully, which seemed to burrow right up into the snout of the mountain. The summit, when we reached it, was wind-swept, and the rain now had a spikey iciness to it, which made

life very unpleasant.

We quickly came down off the top of Tryfan and crossed to Glyder Fach. The route here was even less obvious, and soon we were floundering up icy faces between boulders, across gullies into the shelter of the rocks.

and then scrambling up beside the gully, backing our way up precariously

over huge slabs which blocked our way, and feeling very relieved when we reached the safety of a small plateau. But from here our way was not clear; we looked in vain for a route, but all the time the swirling

_

cloud kept throwing down ice and snow. We had been climbing AI now for four hours, but we had seen very little, apart from our own and 60