Little Tryfan busy on Good Friday evening
Like Richard, Monika and Peter, we had aimed to miss all of the Easter crowds. On Friday we weren’t terribly successful though! Dan Jackson picked me up, and we went to collect Hamish. On the way over we could see the endless train of caravan’s on the M6, so we tried our best to avoid it. We ended up driving along the A5 and joining the M54 near Shifnal. We then took a lovely detour to avoid Llangollen and Corwen (A525 from near Wrexham, then the A5104).
We eventually met up with Steve Lacey and Dave Williams (DW2) and decided to climb on Little Tryfan as we had arrived rather late in the afternoon. Steve had arrived much earlier in the day and had already climbed Tryfan.
The famous pinnacles of Amphitheatre Buttress provided excellent climbing
On Saturday me, DW2 and Dan Jackson planned to climb something on the East face of Tryfan, but as we drove through the Ogwen Valley we decided it was going to be horrendously busy. We continued down the road trying to formulate a plan, and decided to climb something in Craig Yr Ysfa. The walk in is quite a slog, but you are rewarded constantly with incredible views. We eventually reached the gully we had to descend to the routes and left our bags at the top.
The descent was quite sketchy, a downward scramble through a gully with big blocks just waiting to slip. We reached some decent tat for abseiling off and quickly reached the first routes. We decided though that we hadn’t really got the time to try anything too hard, so opted for Amphitheatre Buttress. I’ve wanted to do this route for a while, so wasn’t dissapointed!
We started our climb at about 2pm, so by this time the Sun was no longer shining on the crag. With the wind, it was an incredibly cold day, and it wasn’t long before me and DW2 donned down jackets! We ran a couple of the pitches together (in the North Wales Rock guide it’s described as 10 pitches, I think we did it in 6 though), but we were slowed down by a group ahead of us. They had intended to climb as a 3 & 2, but realised when they reached the base of the climb they had left one of their ropes so climbed as a 5.
I topped out last and just after 8pm, which was a bit unfortunate as we had a table booked for then! The sunlight was fading, so we packed up and left quickly. On the way back to the hut we stopped off for a kebab, not quite the lovely meal we had planned for but satisfying none the less!
Meanwhile, Hamish walked from Ogwen Cottage back to the hut, via Y Garn and Elidir Fawr, finishing off walking through the slate quarries.
At the end of Llyn Padarn, we took a rest to take in the views
The next day the weather didn’t seem too great. We were feeling rather tired so, joined by Hamish and Nick Rowe, we ventured down to Llanberis where we were accosted by a chap trying to sell us his book in Pete’s Eat’s.
Finally on the Monday, me and Dan went down to the closest crag to the hut, the Bus Stop quarry. This was Dan’s first time on the slate – safe to say if wont be his last! It was a bit of a suntrap, a welcome change from Saturday’s climb!