Snowdon Mountain is the tallest mountain in Wales and the tallest south of the Scottish Highlands at 3,560'. It is impressive because the land around it is close to the sea and thus not much higher than sea level. It is located near the substantial towns on Bangor and Caernarfon, on the northeast of Wales. Plus, the area around the mountain is Snowdonia National Park.
There are two ways to get to the top: The first is to walk up and buy a t-shirt at the top braging that you got there the "hard way" by walking up. The second way is how I got to the top--I took the cog railway train! A lot easier, though you miss out on bragging rights that way.
Actually, it is supposed to be a fairly easy path up to the top, and many people choose this way. Supposedly, it takes between five and seven hours to go up and back, but that obviously depends on a lot of things. A lot of the hikers had heavy backpacks and looked pretty competent at hiking up mountains. There were some families, but not too many with small children. Here is some more information on the mountain and climbing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdon
I made my reservations six months in advance as I wanted to get tickets for the steam locomotives instead of the diesel trains. The steam locomotives make only a couple of trips per day, while the diesels make quite a few, so if you want the steam experience, it pays to get reservations early. https://snowdonrailway.co.uk/discover/trains/
Here are some of the photos I took. There is a gift shop and cafe at the station, so lots of places to sit and relax. Parking was confusing, so I suggest if you ever do this to get there early to allow for getting lost.
This is one of the diesel engines and carriage.
Can barely see it, but under all that smoke and steam is the steam engine! Two of the three steam engines they use were built in 1895, with the third built a couple of years later!
The carriages are very different. Diesel is on the left and steam on the right.
It's pretty obvious that this is the steam engine.
The engine pushes the carriage instead of pulling it. Also, it is not attached to the carriage for safety reasons.
And away we go!!
Lots of sheep, as there are everywhere in the U.K.!
Halfway there, the engineer has to fill up with water.
As he was filling the tank with water was the only time we were allowed to stand up because the conductor in the rear had to give hand signals to the engineer.
There are a couple of passing points where one train has to stop to let another one heading down or up pass.
The white line is the hiking path.
Some great views of Snowdon and surrounding mountains.
It takes about an hour to get to the top, and then you have about 30-40 minutes to look around or have a quick snack before you re-board to come down.
Notice that you can see the Irish Sea from the top.
You can climb up even higher to another viewpoint, but it was extremely windy and cold up there, so a lot of us skipped it.
This looks a lot like a ski lodge with many hikers and their backpacks getting some food and drinks.
No heat in these carriages, but some of us did close the upper windows!
This is one of the cogs used by the trains. They are still using this version.
The steam engine is done for the day and is being taken back to its storage barn.
A closeup of the diesel engine. These are only a few years younger than the steam engines, by the way!
It was a great trip, in spite of the cold, but at least we had clear views from the top. Clear views are often obscured by clouds, so we were lucky.
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