Tremadog & Ogwen

I was in North Wales this weekend for a friend's birthday, and had orginally intended to try and get some more winter routes done but due to thaw at the end of last week, and the temperatures on Friday evening being positively tropical (8C in Nant Peris at night) we decided to give it a miss. I heard stuff still got done on the Black Ladders, and there was still ice around in Idwal on the Sunday but whether or not any of the lines were complete I am skeptical about. A lot of the snow cover has also diminished as well.

Myself leading pitch 3 of Poor Man's Peutery.

Saturday, with it being overcast and damp in the Pass we headed south to Tremadog for some rock-climbing. We did Poor Man's Peutery S 75m which is one of the classic easier routes on Craig Pant Ifan. In the guidebook its given 4 pitches but I manged to run both 1+2 and 3+4 together without any issues. The route as a whole is generally good but the 3rd pitch is fantastic for the grade, with an excellent, exposed traverse out onto the nose, before following a steep crack line up the wall above for about 20m. Due to our intentions of winter routes both Stu and Stubbs were climbing in there big boots and I was rocking my trainers which made the whole thing a little more interesting!

Scrambling on Carnedd Dayfdd.

Sunday brought a delayed start, but eventually we got round to Ogwen by mid afternoon (2:30pm), we'd intended to go and do Ceniefion Arete which is one of my favourite routes in Wales but decided against it as we all wanted to be home a reasonable hour, and we still had a 2 hour drive ahead if us. Instead we struck straight out of Ogwen Cottage up towards Carnedd Dafydd, picking a line up the different rock buttress to give some quality scrambling in places. We also got some stunning views of Cwm Idwal as the sun set behind. I could just about make out the remnants of the Devil's Appendix, and I'm quite excited to go for a look at it when it's fully formed again.