I had a day of indoor climbing on Friday, due to it being a very wet and windy day. It was the first time that I'd climbed indoors in months and all felt rather novel. It was a busy place to be though, as most of the climbers in North Wales had also been forced indoors for the day! On the plus side, it was a very sociable affair with lots of friendly faces that I'd not seen since way before the summer. The weather picked up on Sunday though, so I took some students for a trip up Cader Idris. They were keen and able, so rather than taking the ordinary hiking route, we ramped up the adventure levels and set off to climb Cyfrwy Arete - a long and exposed scrambling ridge.
Out towards the coast, the weather looked good and was forecast to keep improving.
The ridge looked slightly more intimidating - especially when we spotted another team on one of the pinnacles.
It turned out to be quite busy. I've climbed the route several times and never encountered another climber, but today about five teams made the ascent. We skirted around the harder 'Table Direct' route and joined in at the scrambling section.
After a short wait for a team above to move from the ledge we were aiming for, we set off up the crest of the ridge.
We made steady but slow progress and it soon became clear that we needed to be moving faster if we were going to get up to the summit of the mountain as well as the top of the ridge. As all the lads were keen to bag the peak, we moved to 'Plan B' after a sociable lunch on top of the famous 'Table' - a sloping topped pinnacle. From the table, I lowered the team off the ridge, then abseiled after them off a big spike.
We were then able to pack away the ropes and move much quicker up the easier (but still steep!) gullies to the side of the ridge line.
It didn't take us long to overtake the other teams this way and join the main hiking trail up to the summit.
By now it was almost 16:00 and the shadows got long as we hiked back down to the car. After calling ahead to let people know that we were going to be late home, we were able to enjoy the beautiful light and walked satisfied and tired back to the minibus. It was well past 20:00 by the time I got home, having got the team a celebratory pizza for their extreme efforts! Sometimes it's worth going the extra mile (quite literally in this case), to give an extraordinary experience and certainly some good memories for all.
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