A Wintery Summit

Plenty of rain down in the valley, but we found out first bit of winter up on the hill tops today. Set out from Ogwen Cottage towards the south col of Tryfan, past the 'crocodile rock' at a good pace.

The group I was leading were up for a bit of a challenge, so instead of the 'normal route', I took them up a slightly harder variation. As we reached about 700m, the conditions changed into winter mode. Snow on the ground, windier and the mists rolled in! Exciting stuff!

By the time we reached the summit ridge, we were in full on blizzard mode!

At around 800m of altitude, the freezing level was marked by little feathers of hoar frost growing into the wind on the rocks.

Despite my doubts about the group, we made it up to the summit, although it was decided that jumping between Adam and Eve wasn't a good idea today.

Needless to say, we didn't hang around on top for a picnic (one student had forgotten to collect the groups sandwiches anyway!), so we slid off down the west face (literally at times) and out of the 'white room'. Looking back up, you could clearly see where the rocks became white. It turned out to be a very slow descent for some, but we all made it out unscathed after multiple glove changes and some cold fingers for some.

Once out of 'winter', the winds died down and there were even some shafts of sunlight to that lit up the valley floor. Beautiful. It was hard to believe the difference of the summit conditions.