Xmas North Wales Bash

It's a satisfying feeling waking the whole hut up at 6am. No matter how quiet you are you're going to wake everyone up no matter what you do, so you may as well do a thorough job of it.

There are several advantages to getting up before dawn when you're winter climbing. Yes there's all those falling rock/frozen snow, short daylight things, etc, but surely the best point is that you don't have to pay for parking at Llanberis Pass. Newall and myself left the car at 7am in seriously high spirits. Snowdon here we come. The snow was down to 2000ft, the sky was clear and the temperature cold. Perfect.

By 8:30am everyone in the hut was just crawling out of their pits whilst we were gearing up for the first route of the day and glancing over at the sunrise over Cader Ideris. Cave Gulley, a grade three winter route reputedly grade fourish in lean conditions was what we were heading for. No guidebook but I have done it a couple of years ago so we should be alright.

Angling up the approach slopes we came across the first major gulley line to the right of the Trinity snowfield and up we went alternating leads on easy ground. Newall belayed at the base of a narrow chimney which formed the crux pitch. I climbed through armed to the teeth with sharp things and proceeded to try and hook a sling over a flake that was behind me, awkward when your wedged in a chimney, have a rucksack on and can't quite see what your doing. I continued up on ice that wasn't really that interested in staying on the mountain and therefore had to seek out small ledges and cracks for my axes and crampons. After a short section with little in the way of anything anywhere other than thrutching chimney moves up iced rocks (yes I thought I was going to fall off too) and little in way of gear to protect it the angle eased. Now for belaying in that cave. What cave ? Who's pinched the cave ? There's not that much snow ?

Absorbing though the climbing was I had this nagging thought that it all wasn't quite as familiar as it ought to have been, it turned out that we had done Ladies Gulley. Oooops. A rather tenuous belay for Newall but luckily he didn't know that at the time. A couple more pitches and we were at the summit for a bite to eat and a gaze at the wonderful views of snow capped mountains. Love it.

OK, so if we didn't do Cave Gulley first time around we'll do it next. Romping down the path to the top of the Pyg Track is always a laugh in these conditions. Trainers, shorts and worse were making their way up. I was thinking "Just look at those ill equiped plonkers". No doubt they were thinking "Crampons and Goretex ? Poofs".

Just below the Pinnacle we met up with our a load of our crowd, a quick chat but the climbing beckoned and we traversed across to the base of the gulley and pushed on up. The crux of Cave Gulley is once again a chimney with smooth iced up walls and bugger all places to stick sharp bits in to hook and torque an axe or front point. One of the classic ways to fall off on ice is to over stretch yourself, standing on tiptoe to gain more height. This has the somewhat unfortunate effect of making your front points break out of the ice - not pleasant believe me. So I'm 20ft up and I've got a good foot placement. That was all. Just a foot. Kind of critical path. But with my back against the opposite wall of the chimney it was cool, I could stand there no problem. Unfortunately, the bomber gear placement was just beyond my reach. What a dilemma. Do I stretch and risk that foot peeling off or do I resort to slightly unorthadox tactics ? Well, this is winter climbing and anything goes in my book (apart from standing on someone's shoulder!!). Selecting a hex I start throwing it upwards, swinging it in an arc in an attempt to get it wedged, swinging it repeatedly until it finally gets caught on the lip of the crack. But it is poorly seated and needs a tap with my hammer to get it in position. There that's better. Now I can teeter expectantly upwards, thriving on the tenuous holds, playing a balancing game, controlling the fear. Past the cave on good ice and a pitch or two more to the summit once again.

In descent we traversed Crib Goch, an old favourite but highly entertaining in winter conditions. Excellent nosh from Martin, involuntary chilli eating by Lynne and silly party games galore rounded a superb day which also saw a stack of climbing in the warm sunshine of Tremadoc - E grades and all !!

Sunday wasn't quite such an early start - three guesses why. With the weather warming by the hour (boo hiss) Newall and myself once again headed for the gulleys. With the tough walk up to the base of Parsley Fern Gulley out of the way (hungover ? no not me) we traversed across to the base of Sinister Gulley a grade 3, alas with the main pitch just out of condition. Plenty of ice but all frustratingly out of reach to enable me to get started. Fortunately there is an alternative and by stepping to the side and around a nose of rock an awkward series of rock moves on snowed up rock got the adrenaline surging nicely.

Newall lead through, testing a rock spike to destruction as he went - good job he had only taken a single loop of sling around it otherwise I think it would have pulled him off. Moving together we topped out half way up Crib Goch, continued our ascent and then slithered down Parsley Fern Gulley and out.

A tough but thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

Trevor Dec '99