Devil's Pasture (III), Devil's Kitchen

After 'getting the bug' on The Ramp, we were back to Snowdonia to bag some more routes while the conditions are so superb.  On the way Chris remarked how the weather forecast was cold but clear and sunny.  I was dubious but I was wrong!  It was like an alpine summer!  Below is a photo of Tryfan bathing in the morning sun.

This time we started our journey at 6am, rather than chancing another rough nights kip in the car, by the time we made it to the car park at Ogwen Cottage there were plenty of cars.  Not a good sign but we started out to this time taking the easier route around the right of Llyn Idwal.  The snow was definitely a lot deeper but still not consolidated.

I had designs on doing Idwal Stream, another II/III (I felt comfortable at leading this) but Chris wanted to get Devil's Pasture (III) bagged.  I wasn't too sure because I'd read on UKC forums that The Ramp was a fairly easy ascent for a III, this was confirmed by the users who had logged it.  We decided to "give it the beans" and have a go on Devil's Pasture which looked spectacular but doable.

Since we weren't sure about the South Gully(III-V) and Idwal Stream seemed perhaps too easy we decided to queue.  What a mistake!  The first team seemed to take a long time, and then we had to wait for another two teams of two.  I think we waited for 3-4 hours but we'd settled on the route and felt it was within our reach so didn't mind too much but it was pretty cold!  I must invest in a belay jacket!   Chris lead again and when he did start worked his way up to the first belay point of this two pitch route.  The topo had the route marked as 2 pitches of 30m and 45m.  Chris had about 5m of a 60m rope left by the time he had set up the first belay (using slings).

The photo above is me gratefully making it off the steep section of the first pitch taken from the first belay.  You can see climbers walking the decent route below me to the right.  The first pitch was much harder than anything on The Ramp!  First difficult bit was a move around an ice bulge onto the main icefall.  The climb then became very steep before needing to climb over another bulge.  There were plenty of places people had bashed their feet and axes but I'm not sure if this was a help or hinderance all in all.

The second pitch apparently also a III was much easier and no harder than anything on The Ramp.  The photo above of me on the belay point was taken by Chris at the first ice screw placement before the first of a couple of mixed steps.  The next photo is of Pen Yr Ole Wen in the failing light and certainly the best view I've had from a belay yet, the snow covered Carneddau looked pink.  I really enjoyed being here, especially after the twitchy first pitch!

The next photo is the first mixed step of the second pitch, which was not particularly difficult.

We topped out just as the light started to fail.  Me in front of Pen Yr Ole Wen:

Chris:

This left us with a nice walk back with a beautifully clear sky with the brightest of stars.  We could see as we got down that it looked like another team had topped out in what appeared to be the South Gully in the dark (rather them than me!)