A Cold & Overcast Start, Cloud Clearing Leaving Intermittant Sunshine. Strong Winds throughout. Highs of 14°C Lows of 6°C Feels Like -3°C

I arrived to more cloud than I'd have liked more than had certainly been forecast with strong winds battering the car for good measure. At 6:30am I was early so I reclined the seat, stretched out, folded my arms and shut my eyes for a few minutes. Dawn began to break through the windscreen, turning the underside of the cloud a fiery red, only for more low level cloud to appear in from the east. Jeez, I thought, what on earth happened to the forecast.

It wasn't all doom and gloom. In the rear view mirror I had Caernarfon Bay sitting under clear blue skies. Perhaps I should have gone sailing, I muttered to myself. After a few minutes watching dawn unfold, I started kitting up: boots laced, jacket on at the back of the car, then back into the driver's seat to add hat and gloves. By now it was 6:44am, the wind was still howling outside the window, and truth be told this wasn't the start I'd been expecting. But there was no point moaning about something I couldn't change. So I got out, locked the car, and set off up the Reservoir Access Road.

Dawn had broken by now, and my view east towards Carnedd Filiast and Mynydd Perfedd showed layers of cloud stacked at summit height and above, with hazy blue showing through in places. I was still too low to get a proper sense of what was happening up top, so I decided to crack on with the ascent fully exposed to the easterly wind that kept buffeting me side on. I'd worked up a sweat on the access road, but with height gained the temperature dropped and the wind strengthened. Despite being zipped to the chin, the cold wind was somehow finding its way down the back of my neck. I pulled my hoodie over my beanie, wiped my watering eyes with a gloved finger, and got stuck back into the climb. The shoulder finally neared, and the ground began to ease off with Elidir Fach summit a ten minute buffet away.

This line was less boulder some; instead I scaled and wormed my way over coffin sized blocks, often stacked in places, which meant less hopping and more hands on scrambling. The summit shelter soon appeared, and I was pleased to have it to myself for the brief minute I spent there taking in the views across the Ogwen Valley where summit and stratocumulus cloud dominated from above.

As I walked away, my heart sank a little by both joy and sadness. One day this will be me. It's something I've thought long and hard about; the only real advice I suppose, is in how I manage the change. And in that moment, I felt this fellow showed an outstanding example.

Veering back onto the path I climbed over the wall via the ladder stile and once over the top spotted the eldery walker leaving the shelter, bloody good on him I thow't. From the wall it was a short walk then a hobble over boulder to reach the summit cairn its shelter now occupied by a young couple de-shouldering thier packs. I retraced my route over boulder back to the grassy plateau, turned north and began my descent.