I am not sure how many people would choose to spent their birthday, I decided to climb a mountain and not just any mountain but the highest mountain in Wales – Mount Snowdon.

Set off from Carmarthen at 6.30am for the journey north and arriving in Llanberis at around 10.30am. The original plan was to use the Snowdon Mountain Railway to travel up to the summit and to take in the views get a few photographs and have a bite to eat before beginning the decent down on foot.

When we got to the station in Llanberis they had just put up a sign to advise that all the trains for that day were fully booked – if I had considered this that I might have pre booked some tickets. With no chance of being able to get on the train if there were any spare seats we decided to walk to the summit.

The walk from the train station to the start of the Llanberis walk (which is the longest but easiest) was easy enough then the ascent began and not being the most healthy person in the world I will readily admit that I found the going tough – this when still walking on tarmac roads. We soon turned off the road on to a path and the ongoing walk upwards.

As I was walking up I could see the trains going past and how I envied those lucky people being carried up to the summit. A lot of the way I was actually staring down at my feet as I walked as I found I was able to travel more ground instead of actually having to look at how far I had to go.

Stopped for a break at the Halfway House (halfway point) and was told that the ascent was a lot tougher at this point, and that it would take another couple of hours. I had also in the distance seen the trains going up the side of the mountain and the path that I would have to walk on to get to that point, However I pushed on hoping to get just a little further up Snowdon.

What seemed like a nightmare I pushed onwards and upwards, my friend way ahead of me and I am not sure if this was a good thing or not – sometimes you can cover more ground if you have someone to talk to on your journey.

One thing I will say is just how friendly everyone was on the mountain by offering words of encouragement or just a simple smile.

I did not make it to the summit due to time constraints and the fact that I was mentally and physically exhausted, today while typing this with my sore feet and legs I feel dreadful that I could not push myself that little extra to get to the summit but I know that the 20 minute walk would have take me at least an hour.

After resting for about 30 minutes the decent began and my idea that this would be easy was soon forgotten it actually felt that the journey back was longer – of course it wasn’t but this time I was racing racing against the setting sun to get to the base before sunset. This meant that there were no real rest breaks on the way down.

We started the trek up at 11am and got back to the base at 10pm!

What people need to consider is that this a mountain and can be very dangerous but it appears that because it is such a well know tourist attraction people come here unprepared.