Well, unlike in Summer, when drapped in its winter coat, Snowdow is more than a walk in the park. In fact at the moment Winter Walking on Snowdon is as serious as anywhere in Scotland. Given the conditions I have experience under foot in th last week even low down on the mountain, as well as some of the accidents that have occured in the months during the cold snaps, coupled with my general experience of walking up and down this mountain over the years, there are a few things that you need to consider before heading up the hill if you want to do it safely.
The first is if you have the right experience for it?
The second is do you have the right equipment for it?
The third is is it the right day for it?
It is hard to answer these questions in one short and consist article, however a while back I wrote a small piece on winter wisdom for the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Blog.
This article is more specific to walking up Snowdon in winter, which along with the appreciation that winter walking is more like mountaineering than a stroll in the park and should therefore not be underestimated. For starters, you need to have extremely warm and waterproof clothing, boots suitable for winter walking and appropriate crampons that will fit to those boots, not to mention a map and compass, and a extremely high level of navigation ability. Other things like ski goggles will help you keep your eyes open in driving spindrift. Picture someone crossing the arctic, and that’s the sort of conditions you can sometimes expected on Snowdon if the weather is anything but perfect during winter.
Even if you have this equipment, it is strongly recommended that you get some tuition on using it, making sure that your crampons fit, and that you can put them on with freezing cold hands in a white out. Similarly, the idea of having an ice axe isn’t to stop you once you have started sliding in a hollywood fashion towards a cliff edge, although it can be used this way! Instead an ice axes main line of defence is to prevent a small slip/trip becoming a slide/fall! This is only possible with training with someone who knows what they are doing in an appropriate place to do it. A safe slope with a safe run-out is needed for practicing ice axe arrests, and don’t practice it with your crampons on, as your asking for a fracture of the lower limb. A great instructional book is Steve Long’s Winter Walking Skills.
Further to this there are specific areas of Snowdon that regularly ice over and often become accident black spots with people who are not properly equipped or experienced. On the Miner Track the section from Glas Llyn to the intersection with the PYG track can accumulate ice, and the PYG track has icy on it from just outside the car park in patches. The most serious section of both of these tracks is the section above the intersection of the PYG/Miners, where even if there isn’t much snow, ice can develop into an inclined ice rink, and a slip can continue a long way. Further up the path section from the Zig-Zags to the finger stone are the scene of many slips that require rescue, again because a simple slip can carry on a for a long way.
In terms of descending caution is needed on all the sections mention, if descending the Llanberis path, many people think the railway track will be the easiest way down, however in winter a section above clogwyn goch, becomes iced over and a the concaved slope has lead more than one person to have a fatal slip from here. Instead follow the footpath, above the railway track, it is fairly obvious in all but the heaviest of snow falls, and further away from the precipitous drop.
For all but the most experienced mountaineers, I would strongly recommend staying away from Crib Coch, as in winter it is a Grade II winter route, rather than a scramble. If you take heed of this advice then you could be set to have one of the greatest mountaineering adventures of your life, ignore them at your peril.