There was a hard frost at The Cottage this morning. The forecasts had been suggesting that there might be good conditions for seeing the sunrise in the mountains. I almost went for a dawn ascent, but in the end enjoyed both a lie-in and seeing the colours from the window!
Later in the afternoon I walked up into Cwm Cneifion to see what conditions were like for winter climbing. The ground has been well frozen, but there is hardly any snow. After a bit of deliberating about what route to take, I ended up scrambling up into the back of the cwm to see if there was any old snow in the Grade II route, Hidden Gully.
There were beautiful feathers of rime ice building up on all the rocks..
But the fresh snow from yesterday was all tiny ball bearings that could be swept away with my hand...
However, in the gully, I was rewarded for my efforts as there was some old snow that had hardened into neve and was perfect for climbing.
Without much snow, it was a straight forward, pleasant journey up through some interesting ice features.
The hard neve took very solid axe placements, making things feel very secure.
I made it out onto the top of the Glyders hoping to get a look over to see how much snow was on Snowdon, but although the views were good looking north back towards The Cottage, there was a thick bank of cloud coming in from the south west.
I didn't hang about and made for the top of the Gribin Ridge to descent before I got enveloped too! There was a nice view of Tryfan though, with Bristly Ridge heading up into the mist...
Well it was a long way to go, for not much snow, but I enjoyed myself and got a bit of exercise in the process. Travelling light and fast means no necessity to be burdened down with a big pack either. I had all the necessary safety and technical equipment with me and managed to fit it all (and two ice axes) into a 20l rucksack making it all the more enjoyable!
No comments:
Post a Comment