Central Trinity (I/II), Clogwyn y Garnedd (Trinity Face)

I was in bed at 8pm last night and got up at 4am!  Now that's commitment!  The drive this time was much less eventful and I arrived at Pen y Pass around 6:30am.  After some faffing around for change for the car park (which I hear is going from £6 a day to £10 a day in April) I was off up the Pyg track as dawn broke.

You couldn't see much snow about so from Pen y Pass so when I got my first view of the Trinity face I was pretty pleased:

I carried along the Pyg track and skirted around the mines following some tracks to the base of the face.  There were already a few teams on it but it wasn't that busy, especially compared to the hoards in Ogwen a few weeks back.

I'd decided to take my harness, rope and a small rack even though I was soloing to reduce the risk of getting crag fast for whatever reason.  I put my cramps and harness on and got my two axes out at the bottom.  As I did two guys were tying together with a short rope, I'm sure I recognised them from Shropshire Climbing Centre but waited until we had all toped out to say hello, it was Wills and Wilson.

It seems to get a little steeper before it narrows and gets steeper again.  It was clear there had been an avalanche fairly recently, so it was necessary to kick through the powder into the neve at points.  Below is a photo of Wills and Wilson just before the gully starts to narrow:

The route is 200m long and when you get into this narrower section you really get a big mountain feel when you look behind you.  Below is another photo of Wills and Wilson in the narrower section of the gully:

About half way up this there was a bit of a scratchy section of ice/snow on rock (well compared to the rest of the route which was pretty bomber!).  By the time the gully widened out again we were only 20-30m from the summit and my calves had a burn!  The top out was about 30m or so from the summit, and wasn't corniced.

We had a couple of pics on the summit before coming down again via the Pyg track again.  Lots of tourist ill equipped and making use of there bums as velco trainers don't have much grip!  Wills and Wilson on the summit at what looks like a Petzl Quarks convention :)

Me on the summit with Crib Goch in the background:

On the way back down I took this of Central Trinity on the way down the Pyg Track:

I was back down for lunch.  I stopped off at Joe Browns and bought Dave McLeods '9 of 10 climbers make the same mistakes' so maybe I'll try a grade XI next ;)