As day dawned, the cloud was low, the rain had started, and the forecast was for worse. So what was there to do, but find the highest nearby mountain and climb up it.

Walking from the hut, we threaded our way through the abandoned slate quarries of Dinorwic, Annie boosting our spirits by intoning 'Dinor-wic Po-wer Sta-tion' in her best Welsh accent.

The first decision point came by a fence marked 'private, strictly no access, dangerous mine workings'. It didn't take us long to work out that the correct route was to climb over this fence, and then up a 40 degree concrete incline before reaching an old mine track. This turned out to be a newly metalled road, which we followed along the 650 metre contour (isn't it great to get into the hills and away from civilisation?) until our way was blocked by a 15 foot barbed-wire topped fence.

Sensing that perhaps someone didn't want us to continue that way, we reluctantly turned off and headed straight up the steep flanks of Elidir Fawr (924m). By now well into the clouds, and in a strengthening wind, we briefly took shelter in the lea of some rocks, before slipping and sliding along the narrow slatey ridge to the summit cairn.

Then it was on to the next summit, Foel-goch (831m), before deciding against continuing and further along the ridge, owing to not being able to see more than 50m in any direction. The path shown on the map proved to be a figment of the surveyor's imagination, but some skilful compass work from Niall and Gordon soon returned us to the valley above Nant Peris.

A quick climb up through the quarries brought us back after a couple of miles to the hut, where we met up with the (perhaps more sensible) people who had spent the day in Pete's Eats.

The weather the next day was a bit better and the party split into two groups: one doing the Snowdon Horseshoe and the other a "Lower" level walk around Foel Goch and Foel Gron.

The Horseshoe party set off from the car park at the pass and headed into the mists swirling around the North ridge of Crib Goch. After picking up some stragglers who thanked us by kicking rocks at Carmen, we hit the Pinnacles just as the wind began to whip the hail/snow around!

Progress over Crib Y Ddysgl was quite hard going and at the junction with the Pyg Track, half the party made their way back to the cars. The rest of us soldiered on through the hordes on the summit (including some very cold chaps in kilts) and on down the slippery slopes to Y Lliwedd. At the col we were rewarded by the clouds separating and a superb view of Y Lliwedd and views under the clouds all the way out to sea. After the last of the day's excellent scrambling we pushed on through the wind, which as we reached the lake shore was of terrific force (Simon F got blown over on more than one occasion!)

We finally made it back to the cars just as night fell, and returned to the hut to find that most people had left, but equally, had already done most of the cleaning!

An excellent time was had by all, and the hut is well worth returning to in the future. Particularly if there are 30 of us!