The Headwall, Cwm Lloer

Went out with my mountaineering group with bags full of kit for every eventuality - ice climbing, snow craft, rock scrambling and navigation training. The hunt was on for any last trace of snow and ice and began with a warm and sweaty walk up into a rather gloomy Cwm Lloer.

We lunch inside the emergency bothy bag shelter to keep out of the wind and rain, while contemplating our options. Keep ascending? Walk around the lake? Stay put? Bail out and go to the cafe?! After deciding to keep heading up for a better look at conditions, the cloud lifted enough to show us that winter was over for now and that we'd just be taking the rope, helments and crampons for a walk today. At least it was good training having a heavy bag - that's how I sold it to the group anyway...

 

We did find a bit of ice to hack about on near Broad Gully, but not enough to climb and with the temperatures so warm it would have been dangerous to venture into the gully. Instead, we continued up the wide open headwall at the back of the cwm, with the hopes of following a ribbon of snow to the summit. We linked what patches there were, but it was mostly scree and steep grass to the top.

 

We were rewarded for our hard work when we reached the rim of the cwm, as the clouds began to break up. We were glad we'd kept going.

 

We summited Pen Yr Ole Wen in full sunshine and descended the east ridge easily back to the van, via every snow patch we could, keeping eyes in the back of our heads for in-coming snowball attacks! Sometimes it's worth just going for it - even if it means starting in the rain...