Trip to Snowdonia, Wales

Saturday 19th September 2009

We were all up bright and early and had the obligatory cooked breakfast before setting off to climb Tryfan. Our route was to climb Tryfan via the North Face, descend via the South Face and then walk across Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr, then across to Y Garn, past Pinnacle Crag and then around the lake at Llyn Idwal and back to the car park. According to my GPS route this would cover a total distance of 7.58 miles and take around 6 hours (little did I know). The ascent up the North Face of Tryfan is classed as a grade 1 scramble and relatively easy, especially if keeping left on the ascent although I think some of us might have disagreed with that description!. Some of the group (including myself) had not done anything like this before and before long the nerves were starting to show (myself included). We continued the ascent for a couple of hours, slowly picking our way up the North Face, the going at times quite tricky, hands and feet and a head for heights definitely required at times. About two thirds of the way up the going got quite difficult and checking of our route was performed by the ever encouraging Nigel. It was then that the clouds descended on us and visually we became unable to pick our way to the summit. We decided to stop for a few minutes to check our location and have a breather when several fit young men came out of the murk from the direction we were heading and told us ‘Turn back, you can’t get through this way’ as there was a steep rock face which they said was impassable. This caused an uncomfortable moment for us as, if this was the case, then we would be forced to turn around and retrace out steps. It was agreed by all that this would be far trickier than the ascent.

[Ed – Wow, the North Face – yes this looks really tricky!]

Owen then volunteered to scout ahead to see if he could find a way through. He disappeared into the mist and left us to our thoughts for a few minutes. It was as this point someone in the heavens was smiling on us and the cloud lifted as quickly as it descended. Owen returned with good news that he thought there was a way through and with our visibility and confidence restored we continued towards the summit. We reached the top of Tryfan about three hours after we started all very pleased with ourselves. The summit was very busy and it was decided we should descend down the South Face and then have a lunch stop.

After lunch and as time was pressing on, Nigel decided that we should shorten the route and after crossing the Glyders we should descend through the Devils Kitchen and around Llyn Idwal. The descent through the Devils Kitchen can almost be described as an enormous staircase out through two towering pieces of rock. I think that much work has been done (by whoever maintains these paths) to make the route easier to ascend/descend. During the descent Steve hurt his knee and had to take it a bit easier on the remainder of the route. I think he was in some discomfort but managed the rest of the walk without any complaint!

We arrived back at the car park at 7:15 pm. The total time for this walk was a very tiring nine and a half hours. It’s worth noting the distance travelled when walking/scrambling over this terrain. I’m the gadget man of the group and had full Ordinance Survey GPS mapping both for the route and the track log it produces as we walked. The original walk although a third longer was a total distance of 7.58 miles. According to the track log at the end of our walk, even though we cut off a third off the route, the distance covered was 7.59 miles. It just shows how much further you actually travel over rough ground. Our average speed over the ground was an exhilarating 0.78 miles per hour!

We all got back to the youth hostel and after a quick change we headed off to our favourite pub for dinner and congratulated ourselves on our achievement. After a few drinks and a hearty meal it was back to the hostel and bed time. I think we all fell asleep within thirty seconds after our exertions of the day!

Report – Rob

Pictures – Rob, Judith and Owen