The Glyders

Beef stew for breakfast and the backpack indeed felt lighter when I headed for Glyder Fawr at 9am. The path started just behind the hostel, how convenient.  The going was rather easy, up to a small Llyn, over a level boggy bit of grass (that is probably a real pain in normal weather) before the second half of the ascent went steeply over a long boulderstrewn slope and was as arduous as the last stretch of Snowdon yesterday but so much more fun since I was all alone and navigating over and around rocks of all sizes just spiced up the "walk".
The sky had been mostly covered in clouds when I started but it cleared up more and more. I had an almost clear blue sky when I finally reached the top of Glyder Fawr and a whole new world openend up. The ground was completely covered in rocks, some stacked by nature into the weirdest formations plus here and there a cluster of spikes. I was so amazed by this otherworldly scenery, that I almost forgot to enjoy the fantastic view from up here.
It wasn't possible to capture this on a photograph so I only took very few and instead dumped my pack and swiftly climbed the highest of those spiky boulder clusters not really knowing which one of them was the actual top. A group of three older ladies came up another path and found me sitting there, grinning and enjoying myself.
Had a nice chat, climbed down and headed over to Glyder Fach that could already be seen in the distance since it features a huge cairn with massive boulders.
Bloody hell, did I enjoy walking over there!!! The absolutely brilliant weather and jumping and scrambling (heavy pack made it necessary to use hands here and there) over that large boulderfield... I had the time of my life.
Reached that humongous cairn that none of my pictures do justice, dumped my pack again and decided to climb it. I had somehow found enormous fun in scrambling.  So far I have never had the opportunity to do it and it's definitely something I need to do more often!
There were a few tacky situations while making my way up but I wasn't in a hurry and since I was all alone, I didn't take any unnecessary risks. Took my time to find the easiest way up and eventually made it all the way to the top. Man, I was proud. Sitting there feet dangling I thought "Bloody hell, how am I gonna get down there again?"
I knew that you should never scramble up something that you know you can't go back down. So of course I knew getting back was possible without taking too much risk. Always used two hands, picturing the dodgy moves in my mind before I did them and  just slowly made my way down. So cool!
Walked/scrambled down over more boulders to a high grassy plateau where the Miners path crossed my path. Sat there in the sun behind a large rock hidden from the wind for almost an hour and just enjoyed that awesome day. This day and the one walking those lonely beaches were definitely the best ones so far. Finally a proper hillwalking day! Somehow Snowdon was too easy and way too busy.
Eventually got up again and walked down to Idwal with fantastic views all around. The path was quite steep almost all the way down. I reached the valley just shortly after 5pm had a cappuccino at a small caffee watching  military jets flying by every now and then coming in low over Llyn Ogwen and taking a turn just here into the valley leading to Bethesda.  Wow. Never seen one up so close. The noise was deafening but I could almost see the pilot, so close were they.
By now I finally felt that I had been out in the sun all day without protection. But seriously, the almost constant breeze makes you so unaware that it's actually summer, haha. Since I had "grown" a very nice dark tan over the last week it wasn't much of an issue. It's a reddish brown today and will be an even darker tan tomorrow. Wonder if people will still, recognise me when I'm back, haha.
Checked into a single room at the lovely YHA Idwal and made a booking at YHA Rowen for tomorrow since the one in Conwy is fully booked. Ewww. The plan was actually to take the long walk all the way back to Conwy since Rowen is a bit off the track. Well, this shortens tomorrow's stage a bit and since I have enough spare days I'm not so unhappy after all. That makes a very easy and relaxed walk back to Conwy on Wednesday.