Back to Ogwen! This time with a colleague also called Chris, however this time for more of a day of mountaineering than climbing, two gullys which would lead us out to the summit of Glyder Fawr. Having parked at the Ogwen Cottage and with a late start of 10:30ish we made our way around Llyn Idwal to the base of the first Gully.
East Wall Gully can be seen in the photo above by following the base of the main rock feature up to the small V. We started up and it became apparent from how soft the snow was (due to powder and temperature) that it was going to be a hard old slog!
You can see Chris in the photo above nearing the top of the gully, up to his knees in soft powder snow! This slog was made worth it by the an amazing view of Cwm Cneifon, Clogwyn Du was masked in clag but would be revealed quickly by the wind only to be taken back just as quickly.
The walk upto the start of Easy Route was tough. The snow was deep in the cwm and it was a right old slog upto the start of Easy Route. At this point we decided to take a break and get some grub at the foot of Clogwyn Du pictured below
Hidden gully tops out in the prominent V to the left of the main rock face. We made (slogged) our way up Easy route to the base of the gully, however we started climbing up and across the face to get out of the sapping snow. This led us out at the bottom of the gully (see photo bellow) nicely, it hadn't been touched and was in perfect condition! I was a bit concerned with the earlier sludge!
We left the rope in the bag and Chris went up the first half first, below you can see me almost halfway up the gully:
From here, I went first and made my way over the first step, below you can see Chris making his way over the step:
After another step we'd both topped out safely in time to admire the views, below was the view to Anglesey with Pen Yr Ole Wen on the right:
The Snowdon Massif from the summit of Glyder Fawr with beautiful temperature inversion:
We descended down the the saddle between Y Garn and Glyder Fawr and then down the decent route for the Devil's Kitchen climb. The routes were definitely melting however The Ramp appeared to be a lot fatter than when we did it where as the Devil's Pasture seemed a lot thinner with the difficult first step to the left now gone. We traversed across the snow to see the South Gully which looked in great nick and on to the Idwal Stream (II/III), we had a little time before the light failed so we had a quick solo of the first pitch. Me in the first pic and Chris topping out in the second.
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