Snowdon via Crib Goch

Well it's been another fine day in the Snowdonia National Park, with perfect conditions for guiding a team of students over the famous knife edge ridge of Crib Goch and up onto the summit of Snowdon.

I had several plans (as usual) about which way we would ascend the highest peak in Wales, but having arrived at Pen y Pass and seen the conditions first hand, I decided to go for the classic ridge option - the clouds had lifted, the winds light, and the weather stable. The first part of the ascent looks improbably steep and technical. As we made our way up to the main rocky band, we passed two hikers who had decided it was looking too challenging for them and had turned back to return to the PyG track. It was a sesnible choice for them and certainly put my team 'on edge'. It is very exposed and involves some scrambling as well as close spotting at key points. Reaching the summit of the first peak, this was our view...

The way ahead was now both obvious and exciting!  Although there was still some snow about, the ridge was mainly snow free and the patches that we came across were easily avoided or soft enough to kick through. The views were as good as they could ever be adn it felt like we had the whole mountain to ourselves.

The ridge goes on and on and is every bit as good as it's reputation. I had my work cut out going back and forth between the group making sure everyone was safe and ok as we made the traverse.

This is the view looking back at where we'd come from. Just quality!

Then it's more of the same as we made our way up to the next summit...

The 'Trinity Face' of Snowdon looked spectacular as we traversed opposite. The thin gullies of snow that lead up to the summit are some of my favorite winter routes in this area.

After the exposure of the Crib Goch ridge, the last slopes up the railway to the summit were a breeze. From the summit we could see the sea out west and way off towards England in the east.

While we were on top, soaking up the summit euphoria, a mist blew in up the valley and we saw a faint broken spectre below us! We dsecended via the PyG track, which was still holding a good amount of snow on the path. After protected the team down the steepest section, we slid down the zig zags, which had turned into a kind of  snowy 'Scaletrix' track, with two foot grooves! We still had to be careful on the slopes above the mines, but once past the miners track, we could relax a bit. From here the pace slowed down massivly as the adrenaline of the monring began to wear off. It was a team of very happy but very very tired lads that made it back to the mini bus at Pen y Pass. It was a day that they'll remember for a long long time...