Mt. Snowdon
We got up this morning at 7:30 and ate breakfast provided for us in the hostel. They had cereals, juice, and toast - more of a selection than I expected! We grabbed extra pieces of bread to make sandwiches for lunch (the guys brought peanut butter and jelly, haha) - yay for saving money!
Today was our mountain-climbing day! We walked into town and started looking for the bus station. It was 9:00 am, and we were still searching - the bus for Snowdonia was coming at 9:04, so we were really hoping we wouldn't miss it! We were walking by a bus stop just as a bus was pulling up to it, so we decided to ask the bus driver for directions. It turns out that this was the bus to Snowdonia! How ironic and wonderful.
Brent and Josh on the bus:
It was about a 45-minute ride to the city of Snowdonia. The view was so pretty from the windows: bright green rolling hills, foggy mountains in the distance, and sheep scattered everywhere. We arrived at the park, and Brent and Josh (being the "men") took on the job of talking to the warden and getting details and guidelines for climbing Mt. Snowdon. The warden told us it would be extra dangerous because heavy rain was in the forecast! We were determined to climb anyway, and we started up the mountain at 10:00 am.
It took us 3 hours on the way up and 2 hours on the way down. Josh led the group most of the way up - he has a lot of experience with mountains, and I felt bad for him sometimes because he had to slow his pace for us. The way up was really tough - lots of steep incline and big rocks to climb over. We had to take several breaks, against the advice of Josh ("breaks only make you get tired faster"). The area was really foggy, which made it harder to see where we were going! There were waterfalls all around us, which were so pretty....Kelly had an injury very early into our trip though, involving a waterfall. She was leaning over to feel the water, her foot slipped, and she scraped her chin on a rock when she slipped! She bruises really easily, and we could see a bruise on her chin right away! ;(
Brent walking up to a sheep:
After 3 hours of hard climbing, we made it to the summit! What a great and rewarding feeling. The fog was so thick up there that
(1) the pictures we took hardly show any background except white...haha
(2) it was harder to feel the success since we couldn't look down the mountain and see how far we had come - everything was white!
Oh well, we knew what we had accomplished, and it felt wonderful! We ate lunch and took pictures at the summit, and we planned to stay up there awhile and enjoy being at the top. However, the rain decided to come then! Before we could start the walk down, we were soaked through our jackets, shirts, jeans, shoes, socks, everything! We decided to head down right away, with a new burst of energy since we now looked forward to getting off of the mountain and to somewhere dry. Brent and I led the group on the way down. I didn't feel sore or tired at all anymore!
We were back on flat ground at 3:15 pm. Our bus back to Porthmadog wasn't until 5:45 pm, so we took a different bus to a nearby town to kill time. It was such an adorable place, lots of cute little restaurants and celtic shops. We went to a cafe for dinner, and I got a bacon, cheese, and avocado sandwich - it was sooo good. I was wearing my "Abilene Christian" sweatshirt, and a couple at a nearby table asked me if I went to school there! I said yes, and they told me that they were from Houston! This was one of the craziest things that happened on the whole trip -- I ran into a couple from Houston in Wales! I couldn't believe it. Even crazier than that was the fact that they knew of ACU. People in Houston haven't even heard of it before, haha.
We shopped a little and bought souvenirs, and then we caught our 5:45 bus back to Porthmadog. We got back to the hostel around 6:30 pm (still miserably wet from all the rain), and the first thing we wanted to do was take showers and change into clean, dry clothes! We felt SO much better. Then, we went to the TV room and watched Good Will Hunting in our pajamas and drinking hot chocolate :).
After the movie, we experimented with Brent's camera, taking cool pictures with different shutter speeds -- Brent tried to make me look like a ghost, and this was the best we could come up with (Josh being the innocent victim, haha):
The TV room closed at midnight, so we headed back to the room and fell asleep right away. We were all so exhausted, but it was a very full and rewarding day!
Today was our mountain-climbing day! We walked into town and started looking for the bus station. It was 9:00 am, and we were still searching - the bus for Snowdonia was coming at 9:04, so we were really hoping we wouldn't miss it! We were walking by a bus stop just as a bus was pulling up to it, so we decided to ask the bus driver for directions. It turns out that this was the bus to Snowdonia! How ironic and wonderful.
Brent and Josh on the bus:
It was about a 45-minute ride to the city of Snowdonia. The view was so pretty from the windows: bright green rolling hills, foggy mountains in the distance, and sheep scattered everywhere. We arrived at the park, and Brent and Josh (being the "men") took on the job of talking to the warden and getting details and guidelines for climbing Mt. Snowdon. The warden told us it would be extra dangerous because heavy rain was in the forecast! We were determined to climb anyway, and we started up the mountain at 10:00 am.
It took us 3 hours on the way up and 2 hours on the way down. Josh led the group most of the way up - he has a lot of experience with mountains, and I felt bad for him sometimes because he had to slow his pace for us. The way up was really tough - lots of steep incline and big rocks to climb over. We had to take several breaks, against the advice of Josh ("breaks only make you get tired faster"). The area was really foggy, which made it harder to see where we were going! There were waterfalls all around us, which were so pretty....Kelly had an injury very early into our trip though, involving a waterfall. She was leaning over to feel the water, her foot slipped, and she scraped her chin on a rock when she slipped! She bruises really easily, and we could see a bruise on her chin right away! ;(
Brent walking up to a sheep:
After 3 hours of hard climbing, we made it to the summit! What a great and rewarding feeling. The fog was so thick up there that
(1) the pictures we took hardly show any background except white...haha
(2) it was harder to feel the success since we couldn't look down the mountain and see how far we had come - everything was white!
Oh well, we knew what we had accomplished, and it felt wonderful! We ate lunch and took pictures at the summit, and we planned to stay up there awhile and enjoy being at the top. However, the rain decided to come then! Before we could start the walk down, we were soaked through our jackets, shirts, jeans, shoes, socks, everything! We decided to head down right away, with a new burst of energy since we now looked forward to getting off of the mountain and to somewhere dry. Brent and I led the group on the way down. I didn't feel sore or tired at all anymore!
We were back on flat ground at 3:15 pm. Our bus back to Porthmadog wasn't until 5:45 pm, so we took a different bus to a nearby town to kill time. It was such an adorable place, lots of cute little restaurants and celtic shops. We went to a cafe for dinner, and I got a bacon, cheese, and avocado sandwich - it was sooo good. I was wearing my "Abilene Christian" sweatshirt, and a couple at a nearby table asked me if I went to school there! I said yes, and they told me that they were from Houston! This was one of the craziest things that happened on the whole trip -- I ran into a couple from Houston in Wales! I couldn't believe it. Even crazier than that was the fact that they knew of ACU. People in Houston haven't even heard of it before, haha.
We shopped a little and bought souvenirs, and then we caught our 5:45 bus back to Porthmadog. We got back to the hostel around 6:30 pm (still miserably wet from all the rain), and the first thing we wanted to do was take showers and change into clean, dry clothes! We felt SO much better. Then, we went to the TV room and watched Good Will Hunting in our pajamas and drinking hot chocolate :).
After the movie, we experimented with Brent's camera, taking cool pictures with different shutter speeds -- Brent tried to make me look like a ghost, and this was the best we could come up with (Josh being the innocent victim, haha):
The TV room closed at midnight, so we headed back to the room and fell asleep right away. We were all so exhausted, but it was a very full and rewarding day!
posted by Lisa @ 8:28 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:15 PM,
Anonymous said…
hey girl! so i finally got to read your blog. yay for me! Anyway just wanted to make a comment on your picture- its so awesome! send me some more! cant wait to see you in DECEMBER!! love ya
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