Thin as F**k

This weekend produced two very thin ice routes and an amazing winters mountain route.

Myself, Phil and Scott headed to North Wales this weekend, we had planned to head up to Scotland to try the famous point 5 on the Ben Nordwand but serious snow fall and very high avalanche danger put a stop to this.

We arrived in Llamberis around 9pm on Friday night, we had travelled up in Scott's transporter, this would also be our bed for the weekend. We parked outside the local boozer and didn't waste anytime in heading in for a few pints. I personally wanted a hot chocolate with marshmallows but the guys found it funny to keep ripping the piss about this.

Anyway after a few beers and me kicking both there arses at pool we decided to retire to the van, I was lucky enough to get a spot on the bed whereas Phil had the comfort of the rear arch in his side.

We awoke at around 530 am to the sound of Scott's alarm, i think it was at least 630 before any of us slipped out of the sleeping bag.

We didn't really have any routes in mind for today as we were not to sure what conditions would be like so we decided to head into the devils kitchen area at Ogwen and see what things were like. After arriving at Ogwen it wasn't long before we started to notice how thin all the ice routes were. although there was still allot of snow around on the hills most of the Ice had stared to melt. The top section of the devils appendix was still there but barley holding onto the rock. we walked round underneath south gully, central route and chicane, they were all very thin, probably only central route was climbable. we decided to head on round and check the screen and ramp out, both of these didn't look too bad from a distance, when we got a little closer we started to see that the screen was way to thin to withstand any of our weights but the ramp didn't look too bad.

we got ourselves kitted up and soloed up the first pitch of the ramp, Scott was on lead to attempt the crux pitch of the route, he set off sailing up the bulged ice with no problems at all even managing to put a few screws in on the way. After moving out of site myself and Phil waited for the shout of safe, there was a short silence and no movement on the rope, eventually more debris come down the route and we got the shout of "Safe". Phil followed on up next making light work of the line especially as he hadn't done much ice previous to this. I then followed on up stripping the route as i climbed. Overall the route was very nice with pretty straight forward climbing for grade III.

When we arrived at the top we decided to head back round and have crack at central route(III/IV). we arrived at the bottom of the route and allot more of the ice had melted since this morning we had we looked at it, Phil wanted to try and lead which myself and Scott didn't have a problem with. So off he went,while he was climbing myself and Scott were starting to get a little concerned when Phil was about 25 metres up without any protection in the wall yet, he was having to climb a mixed line just to the right of central route as the ice on the route was in no state to climb. He eventually managed to place a sling ( Not the best) which made me feel much better. after climbing for around 30minutes we finally got the shout of "safe" I set off up next, the climbing was pretty hard due to the rock being very loose, i managed to dislodge a rock the size of a football which hit me in the knee an cause me some serious pain. Scott was climbing on up behind me, he seemed to be having allot of trouble with hot aches in his hands, i eventually made it up to Phil after some tough climbing,( He must off been shitting it on the lead)

when I arrived he had somehow managed to make a belay out of nothing using his two axes and a very suspect ice screw. Scott followed on up, he was now in quite allot of pain with his hands. he eventually shook it off with a few painful face expressions and groans, we sort off soloed up the last to easy pitches to the platue at the top, by this time it was starting to get a little late so we decided to head back down to the valley, we all arrived down safely an headed for a much earned beer and some food, whilst eating the conversation mostly consisted on how great Phil's lead was, although they both seemed to have it in for me again as i was yet again getting the piss ripped out of me, this time on the fact i hadn't lead anything this weekend, I personally thought i was being kind letting Phil lead the route as i had lead the routes on the previous wales trip but them too seemed to think i was scared and they I enjoyed my top roping....little do they know...

Day 2 - We decided to go for a winter mountain walk today up Tryfan, the weather wasn't the best and we were pretty certain none of the ice routes would have been in nick, we set off from the road at around 0800 making good progress, I was enjoying myself allot, it had been along time since i had just had a nice walk up a mountain, every now and again we would take a snow gully and make things a little more interesting for ourselves but nothing to hard so it got dangerous. Phil even thought it funny to give me the spindrift effect by throwing snow down the gully whilst i was climbing ( Thanks Mate).

we arrived at the summit in good time and all feeling pretty good, we had a bite to eat then started the descent down the other side of the mountain towards Glyder Fawr, we did plan to go back down after Tryfan but because we were having so much fun we decided to carry on over the top of glyder fawr and then come down the ridge the other side which would bring us out on the platoe at the top of Cniefon Arete.

Climbing up the ridge of Gylder fawr was awesome, we were climbing some pretty interesting stuff, we had crampons with us but none of us were sensible enough to bring an ice axe. we eventually came to a section which would have been a little two difficult and dangerous without a rope and gear, we turned around and looked for the safer option, we ended up climbing up this pretty steep snow slope with no crampons or axe, I remember looking between my legs and thinking...shit, one slip or even one slip from to two above me and that's it, we wouldn't stop until we hit the bottom, luckily this didn't happen and we eventually all arrived safely on the summit. we walked for a short while in white out conditions before deciding to check the map for directions, after some confusion we eventually found the ridge that we wanted to descend. At this time the clouds started to clear and the views were amazing, there were quite a few teams climbing on the Clogwyn du area which looked amazing. We put our crampons on and descended the ridge to the platoe below.

After taking a few photos and chilling for a while we took the slow walk back down to the van, i could of stayed up there all day as today was probably one of the best days i have had on the hill for a long time. ( Thanks Guys).

I did take some photos of us climbing the Ramp and central route but for some reason my camera f**ked up and they didn't come out.

Hedbury Sport.

" Moves of Masses" 6a+

One more cheese sarnie" 6c

"One more cheese sarnie"6c

No Ice!!

With all the action and routes looking really fat myself and Phil decided to head to North wales to try and tick a few more ice routes. Yet did we know that most of the ice had gone, It was quite surprising to see how much ice and snow could melt in the period of a day and half. Every route in the Devils kitchen area had either fallen down or melted and run off down the mountain. We decided to head into the devils kitchen area on the Saturday morning. We didn't really have a plan other than to see what conditions were like then take it from there. When we arrived, it was raining quite heavy and the wind was picking up, most of the ice on the routes had gone, the only line that was still intact was "Central route" but even that looked pretty thin and wet. We had a

Look through the guide book and decided to head up to the Clogwyn Du area and see what Cwm Cneifion Arete was looking like, The route was only graded at a D/III (Winter) so this wouldn't be to hard to do in the wet and in B3 boots. We arrived at the bottom of the route and there was another team gearing up to head up the Arete. We had a little chat with the guys and soon got pretty pissed off with them due to them rubbing it in the fact on how conditions had been so good the previous weeks and all the routes they managed to get on. We let them set off up the route while we waited for them to finish the first pitch.

The rock was looking pretty damp but the climbing still looked pretty easy so we decided to take coils and move together on the rope placing the odd bit of gear between us, The first pitch was pretty steep but had good hand holds all the way up, the rock was wet so it didn't take long for our hands to start getting cold. Phil soon caught up with the other team, they had managed to get some of their gear stuck so Phil stopped to help out, They eventually got the nut out and pressed on. They were moving pretty slow pitching every section.

Phil on first Pitch of Cneifion arete

Myself on Last pitch of Cniefion Arete

We decided to push on past them as they had managed to get another cam stuck, I had a little look as i moved past them but it looked pretty deep and didn't look hopeful. We arrived at the top of the route. After a quick bite to eat and a little look around we headed back down.

Sunday-We decided that we would look at doing a 9 pitch route up Lliwedd called "Horn Crag Route". After knowing what conditions were like from our previous day we decided not to take the ice axes and crampons with us. we set off up the path from Pen Y Pass in darkness, the path was in pretty good condition with the odd section of snow. as we started to come around into the Lliwedd area we noticed that the face was pretty covered in snow, knowing that we didn't have our axes or crampons with us we decided to abandon the attempt. we had a little chat and decided to head back around to the devils kitchen area again and try Cniefion Rib, I had done this route before but Phil hadn't so I thought it would be good for him to do it. We arrived at the bottom of the route and it was good to see that the rock was pretty dry, we were climbing in B3's so I knew it would be a nice little tester. I let Phil lead the whole route as I had done it before. He set of up the first pitch, the climbing is pretty easy but there are the lack of solid foot holds when wearing your mountain boots. He seemed to flow through it pretty easy even though he did look a bit jittery on the crux move. He set up the anchor then I followed on
up, when I got to the crux I realised what the fuss was about, it was soaked and trusting your mountain boots on a wet sloping ledge with two small crimp hand holds was pretty frightening but i managed to edge my way through it, we carried on up the route moving together on the rope now as the climbing had become easy, we got to the last pitch and i put Phil back on belay, he moved on up making light work, he shouted down that he spotted a good crack line out left but he didn't fancy it in the boots, he did offer for me to try it but i decided best not! I climbed on up, I spotted the crack line he was on about and i must admit it did look pretty awesome, I think it would of went in B3's too so I guess thats one for the future. I eventually topped out. We sat ourselves down to grab a bite to eat before heading back down.

Even know there wasn't any ice available this weekend it still turned out to be a great weekend, we managed to get some good training in on working together which will come in very handy on our plans for the alps this year.

Overall a Good trip.......

Phil on top of Cneifion Arete

Looking out towards Tryfan

Welsh winter

After browsing through the UK climb website and noticing all the winter routes coming into form in the North wales area Myself and Phil decided to head up there for a couple of days to try and get a few routes ticked. We left for wales on Monday evening, Phil Kindly drove down from Portsmouth and picked me up which meant I could have a nice sleep on the way up, The route up North was pretty straight forward and the weather was looking pretty promising.

We were booked in to stay at Pete's eats bunkhouse, I had never stayed there before but Phil highly recommended it which I can now second that and recommend it to anyone that wants cheap,clean and a good service.

We had a few routes in mind which were the "The Screen(4) and the Devils Appendix(5/6) but we decided to play it as we went and see how conditions were on the mountain before we committed to anything.

We arrived at the car park around 0800, the weather wasn't looking to good, there was allot of drifting snow and the winds were very strong. there were a few other teams getting ready to head up. It took a little while for us lightweights to get out of the nice warm car and into the cold.

We eventually got ready and made our way up to the devils kitchen area, the walk in was probably the easiest walk in I've ever done, it was only made tricky by the thin layers of snow lying on the rocks making them extremely slippery. The weather wasn't the best but we decided to push on.We had a look at our intended routes and they both looked very thin and out of condition, we noticed that south gully looked pretty good so we decided to head up to that area, there was another team in front of us. We arrived at he bottom of the route where the other team were gearing up. it looked pretty thin but climbable, I wasn't to happy about following another team up the route and being in the firing line of all the loose stuff they would drop down. we moved around the corner and decided to head towards "Chicane Gully"(4)

At the bottom of the route things were looking promising, the ice was very thin but looked climbable,After gearing up Phil decided he wanted to attempt to lead pitch one, he set off, he wasn't to happy with the noise the ice was making when he tapped his axe against it, we noticed a mixed line going up the side of the water ice so he attempted this, he still wasn't happy with conditions so backed off, he had also forgotten his big gloves and was feeling the pressure on his hands from the cold, I decided to try and lead the mixed line.The climbing was pretty technical and very thin.loose and scary, But I managed to make my way up the pitch placing some good gear, the weather was now coming in strong with strong gusts of spindrift hitting us head on.

I carried on climbing for a short while and the weather was getting worse, knowing that Phil didn't have any thicker gloves and the weather was going to get worse we decided to abandon our attempt, I place a good number three nut and abseiled down from the route. We coiled the ropes and headed down to the path to take off the gear and make our way back off the hill. I was a little gutted that we didn't finish the climb but i think we made the right decision as the weather was now getting very bad, to my amazement though there were still a few teams just heading up to try some of the routes ( this was about 1400 and in whiteout).

We were pretty keen to come back in the morning and try a different line or attempt the same route again. this idea was thrown out of the window when we woke the next morning to discover around 2 foot of fresh powder had fallen and the weather was near on whiteout. we decided to pack up and come home.

Now i have to taste for welsh winter i find myself wanting to be back there right now as i write but unfortanatly family come first.

until next time....