Winter Wanderings: Snowdonia and beyond...

Before we can talk about Christmas, I have a few months of winter hikes to blog about! 

Since it has been such a mild winter, there's been plenty of great blue sky days and we know to take advantage of them! So we've been introducing our little baby hiker to all the prettiest places around! 

We eased her in gently by venturing to the Watkins Path one Saturday, it's one of the easier trails that leads up Mount Snowdon.  We didn't go up that high as it's an all day affair to get to the top, but just gave Ella a little taster! 

As you can see, she was loving it! 

There were plenty of waterfalls to keep me happy!

and some dodgy camera balancing to get this self timer shot of the 3 of us!

Check out the blue hues of that water!

Daddy posing with a fast asleep Ella on him on the way back down! but oh, what a view! and can you believe we got down to t-shirts...in November!

Our next hike took us to Cwm Idwal, we've been here quite a few times in the past but usually only walked around the lake at ground level, and never ventured any further.

It had been a lovely blue sky day when we left our house but as we ventured into the mountains the clouds suddenly appeared! 

It certainly created some atmosphere!

and this little lady was loving it all anyway! in her new Regatta beanie we had got her at Cotswold a few weeks before to keep her warm and toastie on our hikes!

It was quite a climb up a rocky path with a baby on your back! but it was worth it for that view!

If only that cloud wasn't there!

Ella and I took a snack break whilst By went all the way to the top which is known as Hell's Kitchen through that little passage way, it was quite steep and you needed to scramble up some rocks so we decided it wasn't a good idea to attempt it with Ella! 

On the way back down the clouds cleared and we got this awesome view, although I'm not sure Ella caught it with her hat sliding over her eyes!

and a pretty sunset to top it off as we left!

At the beginning of December, when another Saturday brought more blue skies we said 'yessss let's go take the cable car up the Great Orme' in Llandudno.  When we got there we discovered we were out of season and the cable car is actually closed until March! What a disappointment! 

So we took a little walk out to the water's edge instead.

Ella loved peeping at the sheep in the next field!

We got there just in time for golden hour!

and caught another lovely sunset.

The last weekend before we headed on our Christmas adventures By went on a mountain biking trail through some woods with friends so Ella and I had a girls day at the same time.  We went to check out nearby Conwy Falls, and improved a little at our 'sling selfies'!

I was loving all the mossy covered branches!

The falls were less exciting than I had hoped!

but it was quite a nice walk through the woods...

This was Ella's 'I thought they would be bigger' face...me too Ella, me too! 

We finished our afternoon by heading to Betws-y-Coed...

for a mini train adventure! Ella jigged the whole way around the track and squealed with delight! 

I think she loves Wales and is turning into a great little outdoor explorer! 

National Park Navigating: Crater Lake and Yosemite!

I'd been to America a total of 9 times before our epic road trip...and none of those times had revolved around nature.  Mostly those trips revolved around shopping, root beer, milkshakes, baked goods etc...! but this road trip was co-planned with my forester husband and so it was slightly different! and all the more better for it! Yes, I still ate a large amount of cupcakes and drank milkshakes as often as possible...but in between those treats in the cities, we stopped at some amazing national parks and saw some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen! 

That's our little rental car right there...doing us proud!

America has 59 National Parks, according to Wikipedia...We managed to fit 4 in on our road trip so we still have some massive catching up to do!

 I knew that we couldn't leave Oregon without checking out Crater Lake though.  A few years ago, I saw some American lady's blog and she had pictures of the most amazing turquoise blue lake I had ever seen...I googled it and discovered it was Crater Lake, I'd never even heard of it before! but I knew one day I would like to visit!

Unfortunately, on the day we did arrive at Crater Lake...I mostly looked like this and spent most of the day in the car because I had woken up that day with an extreme case of morning sickenss! which really turned into all day sickness!

So I admired those turquoise blue waters from the car window mostly! Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the whole of America, and is a caldera that was left when a volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted 7,700 years ago.

I managed to make it out the car for this pic! Such amazing views!

We hiked a little way up the outside, to catch this awesome sunset!

Soo pretty!

 

The water was so calm and still! Earlier while I had napped in the car, By had hiked down to the water, a hike that unfortunately was not suitable for pregnant women! and he'd even bravely dived into the water.  Although it was a scorching hot sunny day, the water in the lake is glacial and so was icy cold!!

Fortunately by this time I was feeling better and so I was able to enjoy some of the sights a little more! 

 and lastly check out all the stars we saw!! It was amazing! I love being so far away from everything like that!

 Our next National Park pit stop was the mighty Yosemite in California! We had woken up before 5am to get on the road to make it there, it was one of our longest stretches of driving thus far on our trip!

So we were very happy when we came across this sign!

 

I was less than happy as we drove through the park and I was greeted with all this rock?!

 Yes, it was impressive scenery but not what I was expecting!

 

and that's when we discovered I had mixed up Yosemite with Yellowstone! I was expecting Yellowstone which is a much more beautiful, scenic looking national park.  So in the picture above Byron calls it my 'brat' face...because I was sulking at all the rock!

I did try to get over it, and enjoy everything Yosemite had on offer though! (but one day in the future I must make it to Yellowstone!)

 By braved the chilly waters again, and I stayed on the sidelines being photographer and playing my pregnant card!

Yosemite Falls, above, is the highest waterfall in North America! That did delight me...being the waterfall lover I am, it was not at it's fastest flowing at this time of year though but it was impressive nonetheless!

Byron was just in his element everywhere we went, he couldn't get enough of the place! and would have probably liked to stay for a week! We certainly didn't even scratch the surface of the park - it is SOO huge!

 

 Our campsite was called Tuolumne Meadows and opposite this beautiful Meadow! We captured this shot just as the light was closing in on the day.  It was probably the coldest night sleep we had on the trip because the altitude of the campsite was so high!

but we decided to go stargazing, and climbed that big huge rock in the dark (the one I'd made my brat face on earlier in the day) and we took sleeping bags with us and lay out catching a few shooting stars for a while, and then we realised we could see the Milky Way! How unbelievably cool is that! It was probably one of our best nights on the trip! and it turns out Yosemite wasn't so bad after all!!

Next up awesome amounts of treats in San Fran!