The club trip to Wales was warm and sunny as usual…
Finding the hut was quite interesting as it was up a steep, rocky, muddy, unmarked and flooded track. Simon and Carmen arrived first shortly followed my me. The hut had plenty of room even if it was a bit dirty. On arrival Andrew did his usual trick of putting the fire out and Simon Fox had an early night.
On Saturday Andrew, Donal and I set off to bike on Dinorwig, near Llanberis. We decided to drive to the highest possible point on the road to avoid a long boring road climb in the poor weather. Once parked up we sat for some time whilst we watched the rain and the car was rocked by the wind. After a while we drove down to Petes Eats and visited Joe Brown Mountaineering. From then on it was a tour of the cafes and gear shops of Chapel Curig and Bets y Coed. Donal took us for lunch at a cafe with most expensive coffee in the world and Andrew found new topics of conversation and areas of life to over-complicate.
The climbers – Rob, Simon C, Carmen and Pete – climbed the Cneifion Arete after having waited to do a route on the Idwal slabs.
We're queuing in the rain, just queuing in the rain…
Simon F and Debra went for a walk up Moel Siabod. Initially they had to go to a gear shop to buy the things they had left at the hut. After abandoning their scramble Debra had a slip and small fall near the summit which resulted in a bruised knee. Fortunately, they were carrying all of the emergency equipment needed, a head torch each, first aid kit, etc and were able to evacuate the hill under their own steam.
Saturday night the group enjoyed a fantastic vegetarian feast, sprouts being a particular highlight. The planned bake had to be replaced by a stew owing to the hut having no oven. Andrew was banned from meddling with the fire.
On Sunday the bikers headed to do a ride from a guide book that had been written by Donal's brother/sister/inlaw??? The high winds and heavy rain made getting lost on an unrideable track even more entertaining, but at least the company was good.
On Sunday the climbers did a little wet cold windy walk near Conway. Simon F and Debra headed home to tend to Debra's injury.
Present: Donal, Carmen, Simon Caldwell, Simon Fox, Debra, Andrew, Rob, Gordon Pacey, Margert, Pete Bradshaw and me.
Mike
The rest of our photos can be found here:
http://climbing.me.uk/Pentrefoelas/index.html
and Pete's are here
http://picasaweb.google.com/peterbradshaw101/WateryClimb02#
Fantastic day out in pish weather, it was warm though a tad damp. We got to the Idwal Slabs just after a large Uni group (good on 'em for getting out and doing stuff rather than heading for the wall) and were bemused by some interesting belaying tactics. It was all taking too long and the scramble was equally occupied so we abandoned that plan.
The path up to the Cwm Cneifion (the descent route from the slabs) turned out (as evident from the pictures) to be a little moist in places and provided a great deal of fun. The climb was great, a Diff start (IMHO) followed by a scramble but we pitched it all due to wind and rain and not being a terrible rush. Stroll back down the Gribben Ridge (sp?) – and very brief gear mooch at Capel.