After an appallingly wet day on Snowdon I awoke to a gloriously sunny day in Llanberis. I headed over to Pete's to pick up breakfast before heading up the hill to Toby's campsite. 

We decided to tick of another classic trade route, this time the North Ridge of Tryfan and Bristly Ridge, then over the Glyders and back to Ogwen Cottage, possibly via Y Garn. A big days plan. After ticking off all of this the idea was to jump in the van and head back south for work at the weekend, after all I have to earn money somehow, so i can keep you all entertained with trip reports.

We parked up at the foot of Tryfan and put helmets and rope in the bags as Toby wanted to practice some ML rope work. So off we trotted up the path. We passed under the base of Soapgut, which looked just as green and horrible as when I went up the other day. We moved on quickly up the well worn path before deciding to leave the beaten track again and finding a scramble.

We gained height quickly and found some interesting scrambling! The weather was glorious and the scrambling superb. The North Ridge of Tryfan is pretty straight forward, follow the path up the rock steps or take your own route making it as interesting as you like. 

After reaching the Cannon, an obvious feature on the ridge line, we decided to rope up and let Toby practice his rope work skills. This meant he would have to choose an easy scramble line and then choose an appropriate place to belay me up to. This takes a little getting used to and the first little scramble, about 10m took nearly 30min, from Toby tying me into the rope, to my joining him at his belay. He got quicker as we carried on up. After a few rope sections the scrambling eased out and we de roped. Getting the rope out on a scramble adds at least an hour on to your journey time. Its a slow process as once you have put someone on a top they stay on it till there is no further need for it. 

We quickly scrambled to the North, then South Summits of Tryfan before stopping for a bite of lunch.

After dropping down the south ridge of Tryfan we headed up towards Bristly Ridge. 

The last time I went up Bristly was with Dad on a family holiday and we were guided up. This time Toby and I went up the obvious gully line in the middle of the ridge, just right of the wall. this brought us up onto the ridge proper. Not sure if this is the official ridge route but it was well worn and an interesting little scramble. 

As we climbed the gully the temperature had clearly dropped, I could see my breath as I climbed. 
We topped out of the scramble and there was a distinctly different feel in the weather. It had got very muggy. Looking at the time I made a decision that it was time to head for the van, it was getting late and the weather felt wrong. Toby agreed. As we started down towards the scree slope a few spots of rain started, as we reach the scree the heavens opened and heavy hail hit us. 

We legged it off the mountain and back to the BBV. After a quick change we headed back to London. 

Tryfan didn't disappoint it was a cracking way to end a week in North Wales, now back to work and planning new trips!

This plan suited both our wants, Toby wanted to do micro navigation, and I waned to get up a mountain. I gave some points to get to and Toby took us there. We then headed up the ridge in torrential rain. It was really miserable weather. 

However it made for some dramatic photos, or at least I like to think they are. We decided to go to the summit before escaping into the cafe for coffee and a break from the weather. There, who should we bump into but Sue! Its almost like we knew she would be guiding her clients up there! We had a good chat to them before making our sandwiches in the shelter, and drinking overpriced coffee.

We then headed back down the south ridge, but cut off down the Rhy-DDu path. On the way we over took Sue's Clients, they were looking very bedraggled but relatively happy. After all, weather happens.

Sue, from winter posts, had been working as a guide in Snowdonia and I had arranged to meet her for a day tramping over the Carnedau, Toby was invited to join us as he had been stood up by the guy he was meeting. 

We met at the east end of Llyn Ogwen before heading yup to Ffynnon Lloer. Sue was directing the route but Toby was navigating (practice, practice, practice) from here we scrambled our way up onto Pen yr Ole Wen. There is something about this mountain in the mist, its a little unsettling. I always want to walk the wrong direction off it. I have to stop myself and get a compass out to make sure I head off in the right direction. Its just odd. 


After a tea break (Sue is getting used to the guiding ways) we headed off to wards Carnedd Dafydd. It was an atmospheric wander along the gentle ridge. Its quite a rounded ridge so very pleasant to wander along. 

We reached the summit of Carnedd Dafydd, just like the last your natural instinct draws you off in the wrong direction! We had another tea break! Sue is definitely getting used to guiding older clients. Then headed on towards Carnedd Llewelyn. This was exciting new territory for me! The ridge is slightly more interesting than the last ridge. Im sure it would have been spectacular views, had the mist and cloud cleared. Sue had warned us about a tricky step on the way down, which we found. She then proceeded to show us how to get down it without falling. 

As we descended the final stretch of ridge the clouds finally started to clear, which gave us some spectacular views. On the way down we had a discussion about some moss... if you have any ideas what the fatter one is please do let us know (photos below). 

It was really rather a super day out. Very nice to be walking on solid ground, with paths and distinguishing features, rather than snow. We had one finally stunning view as we made our way back to the Ogwen Valley and the vehicles.

Bank Holiday monday in Snowdonia, and the weather is beautiful.... Which means one thing, TOURISTS! The cars, the lack of parking, the waiting on climbing routes, the hundreds of people going up and over Tryffan, the Glyders, Snowdon. Anyone fancy a days walking?

I was due to meet a chap called Toby. Now Toby is a friend of a friends whom I had met only once, for a few hours in a climbing wall. It was an odd situation, because I had known of him and he of I for a long period of time, but we had always managed to miss meeting each other. 

Well Toby and I decided to go for a walk, but we wanted to get away from the trade routes, away from the couple of valleys that attract the most attention in Snowdonia. We met just after breakfast in Pete's in Llanberris. Where we decided to head south. We fancied a North-South Traverse of the Rhinogydd, but that was a bit too long. So we headed to Talsarnau and possibly the most unpronounceable mountain in Wales.

We left the BBV at Talsarnau, the plan was simple; to head up Mole Ysgyfarnogod then head south and walk for as far as we wanted before turning west and finding a train station which would talk us back to the van.

The day started well. The sun was shining, as we left the van and headed along the road towards the ever present mountains. We made our way up hill and quickly gained the fields of a farm. Now the day began. Toby is working towards his Mountain Leader Award, so he was navigating while I followed along (also navigating but not telling him where we were) we made our way through fields and slowly up towards the summit of Mole Ysgyfarnogod. Im not typing it again! 

This area of Snowdonia is stunningly beautiful. Not the dramatic ridge lines of further north, but a rugged area that you could walk all day in and not meet another person. It was a real pleasure to feel so alone in Snowdonia. 

We mad our way up the mountain until we reached a large lake on the North side of the mountain, where we stopped for lunch. Curiously Toby didn't eat the wraps that he had mentioned earlier, but clearly he wasn't hungry (he confessed later that he had forgotten them but didn't want to mention it incase I judge him for it). We then had a good few hours of scrambling up sharp rock. We decided to stay on the crest of the hill and go to a point marked 'clip' on the map.

By the time we reached clip it was getting late in the day so we decided to head down to the valley and back towards civilisation. Some hours of road tramping later we got to the station. Only to find that the storms that had caused devastation in the South West over the christmas period had washed away the railway in this part of Snowdonia. 

Fortunately being Britain, there was a rail replacement bus service. Good Old Britain! We love rail replacement bus services, they are always so reliable, and get you there just as quickly as the train does. Unfortunately as it was a bank holiday there were only 2 busses. So we ended up hitchhiking. 

All in all a long but fun day out. 

By now Will and I were a little bit weary of the Ogwen Valley. I had been out of contact with civilisation for several days and was getting Facebook withdrawal symptoms, I was relaxed, chilled out, and thoroughly enjoying not seeing what everyone was moaning about. 

Moving swiftly on. 

So we got up and paid a visit to Eric's Cafe. This is another climbing haunt run by the legendary Eric Jones! He sold us a definitive guide book to the area, which gave us lots to think about. The we decided to stick to the original plan.

Hail Beeb - This classic line was a beauty to climb, the belays are all massive trees which makes a pleasant change from building belays with rock gear. Nothing makes you feel more secure than tying yourself to a massive tree (see below). 

After Hail Beeb we abseiled down and made our way back to the van for elevenses. An important part in Tremadog climbing is the ability to drink lots of tea and eat cake. So after coffee and Jamaica cake we thought that we should probably do some more climbing. 

We headed over to climb Oberon - A fuller report on this climb can be seen in my September blog posts so I wont go into detail here. In the interests of fullness I should say that Will lead the first and last pitch while I lead the awkward overhanging, thrutchy chimney, its a very interesting chimney. Full respects go out to Jess Bradshaw who led the pitch back in September when we climbed it then. 

Finally we headed over to Sheer Khan Right Hand, as you will all know having read all my blog posts Jess and I also did this climb back in September. This time however I climbed the first pitch. a superb pitch up to a muddy belay. Will headed up the second pitch, but didn't fancy the awkward step on the traverse, so headed up the second pitch of Smarter than the average bear - Technically a harder climb, but traverses mess with peoples heads. 

As we got to the top it started to rain, which helped make the decision as to what to do next. The obvious answer was to call it a day on climbing and go eat cake and drink tea in Eric's. So thats what we did. 

All round a cracking weekends climbing. Thanks to Will Killiner for coming along and climbing with me.

After the successes of yesterday out on the slabs will and I decided that there was simply too much good climbing in the Ogwen valley to bother traveling anywhere else. We kipped the night in the valley and were up good and early to get on the climbs before the rest of the bank holiday traffic turned up.

Having done all the climbs that we wanted to do on Idwal we decided to hit up some of the smaller crags in the valley. The idea was to do lots of shorter multi-pitch climbs. (multi-pitch climbs are climbs that require more than one rope length to get to the top). 

We headed over to Milestone Buttress on Tryfan. We climbed;
Direct route - this cheeky but fun climb was a superb start to the day, it had one interesting pitch which required a delicate traverse and then a step over a cave to another slab. it was gripping stuff. The final pitch was a polished chimney that required the climber to "thrutch" their way up (basically stick half your body into the chimney and brutally wriggle your way up). After that we nipped back down and climbed up
Sopgut with Chimney finish - This was very interesting climbing. after an initial corner climb, by Will, to a small ledge belay I took the lead up the second pitch.  I have to confess that I was placing gear left right and centre and when I reached the top of the crack and it opened out to a large grassy chimney I decided to build a belay and bring Will up to finish up the last pitch to the top.

After this thrilling climbing we headed back to the car for a spot of lunch. We relaxed in the van for a while before deciding that we should probably do some more climbing. So we headed back to Idwal cottage and over to Clogwyn Y Tarw and had a pop up;
ZigZag - we ended up doing this climb in 4 pitches. This unorthodox method meant that I led the first thrutchy chimney then belayed on a rather polished sloping ledge. Will then led the second thrutchy chimney, a very short pitch, to the large sloping quartz ledge above and a much better belay stance. I then led the next thrutchy chimney which was an exciting pitch, I belayed on a massive spike above so that I could get some good pictures of Will committing to the thrutch. Will then nipped up the last few slabby sections to the top. A really fun little climb. 

We got back to the bottom of the crag before deciding that we where pretty tired and that the climbs wold be there another day. So we bumbled down to the vans and headed off to Tremadog to get ready for another days climbing. 

Im back! Once again I'm back in a National Park having fun and Adventures.

So where am I? Well on friday I was in the Snowdoina National Park, fighting for parking spaces with tourists and ex lectures. Yes once again I bumped into a lecturer near a mountain! 

I met Will just before lunch time on a gloriously sunny bank holiday friday. We threw climbing gear in our bags and headed up to Idwal Slabs to see which classic routes we could get on. 

Here is the run down;

Faith - we did the first pitch before catching up with the party in front, so we moved across on to 
Sub Wall Climb - witch we followed up to the end of the slab. we then linked it to
Lazarus - this cheeky little climb led us on to the final tier of climbing and to 
Grove above - which I had the pleasure of climbing. 

After this rather long excursion we decided to head back to the bottom of the slab, which is possibly harder than climbing up it. and then hit up another climb. this time we did;

Tennis shoe, the other direct start - this cheeky little excursion up the side of the slab proved simply superb climbing. It gets its classic status due to just nice climbing. 

The real beauty of living in the Ogwen Valley for a few days is the complete lack of phone signal. If you were in contact with me on Friday I was part way up a mountain. ;) 

Firstly let me apologise for  how long its been since my last post. I see from the stats page that lots of you readers are still logging on to my site, presumably desperate for the latest update in my well documented life. 

So here it is... The winter round up!

Well winter is well and truly ended, as I'm sure you will have all realised. The sun is shining and people are wearing shorts again, me included. 

The winter was a superb one. 2.5 months spent in Scotland, living in my van. I can't say how much fun it was, but you all know this as you have read the blogs. If not now would be a good time to have a look back over them. My highlights from the winter are (in no particular order); Traverse of Bein Eighe, Ben Nevis via the CMD Arete, The Derry Cairngorm Escapade, and lastly passing my Winter ML Assessment. 

What? I didn't mention that? Ok well as you may or may not know on the week beginning the 17th March I started my Winter ML Assessment. This is believed to be the hardest assessment you can take in the UK. Any further assessments I under take wont include an expedition. The assessment was hard. The expedition was brutal. But I'm not going to go into detail. There are hundreds of self congratulating blogs out there written by people who have passed there WML Assessment. I'm not going to add another. 

All I'm going to add is that there are a vast number of people who I couldn't have done it without, Sarah, Sue, Nick, Lee, Tom, and Sam (This is not an exhaustive list just a few people who put up with me for the longest). Thanks for putting up with me. Thanks to everyone else who has come out with me in the winter over the last few years. 

So what have I been up to for the last month?

Since getting back from Scotland its been work, work, work. Im now entering a period of manic work. The DofE season has kicked off and this is what pays for my winter trips and other fun playtime. The stuff you all want to hear about.

Im not going to blog about work, not DofE work anyway. Its simply not that interesting for you all to read about. 

I will however keep posting what I'm up to via twitter, and will blog about trips and climbs that I get up to.

So don't be strangers.... Keep checking for updates!