Ski Touring in the Carneddau

Seeing the colours of the dawn light in the mountains is one of my favorite things. Getting out of a warm bed in the dark, early enough to witness it, scores much lower down on my list. However, watching the snowy peaks glowing pink and seeing the reflections in Llyn Ogwen this morning was simply breathtaking. In fact, it was so absorbing that I didn't even take any photos; just watched in wonder. There was not a breath of wind in the mountains today and the lakes really were like mirrors.

The snow is no longer right down in the valleys, which meant that we had a bit of a walk, before we could start skinning uphill on our skis.  

Up at Cwm Llugwy, the reflection on the lake was so good that you almost didn't notice it; it started to play tricks on our eyes...

To climb the headwall, we had to carry our skis again, but it didn't take long to get up to the col, where the views kept getting better and better...

At the col, we stopped briefly for some food and drink, before carrying on over the little rocky summit...

Then it was back onto skis and up onto the summit of Carnedd Lleywellyn, which at 1065m, is the second highest peak in Snowdonia. Being 'second highest', it sees no where near as many ascents as Snowdon, and as predicted, we had the whole mountain to ourselves.

On the summit, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch and after a while, some clouds swirled in from the south, threatening to spoil our fun for the way down. We sat it our for a bit hoping it would clear, but the whiteout had soon reduced the viability to just a few meters, which is particularly disorientating when the ground is also white and featureless! We had just set a compass bearing and started gingerly to ski away, when thankfully the clouds parted, allowing us to cruise off towards Carnedd Daffyd.

The skiing was simply fantastic! A firm base, with a fresh covering of snow about 1cm deep. Perfect for skiing, but hard, hard work, for anyone on foot as the base wasn't firm enough to hold the smaller surface area of a foot. If we weren't on our skis, we sank in, upto our shins!

After descending from the summit, we put our skins back on our skis and continued up along the ridge above the Black Ladders...

Then came the best part! Downhill! After downing the last of our food and drink, we tightened up our boots, donned helmets and whizzed off into Cwm Lloer on perfect snow!

We skiied right down to the lake, by linking various wide snow gullies, then had some fun finding a safe passage down as low as we could. Tight turns and fast reactions helped to avoid the rocks (and the stream!). Eventually though, we came to the end of the proverbial road and had to carry out for the last half an hour.

Thanks to a bit of forward planning, we had left a car where the foot path meets the road, so didn't have to finish the day with a long walk back to the van where we had started! Fifteen minutes later we were back by the fireside at The Cottage for tea and cakes! Sometimes it's worth getting up early...