Sinister Gully, Devils Kitchen, Heavenly pint

This weekend saw me head to Snowdonia for a weekend of camping and scrambling. Hugh, one of the Scotland regulars was celebrating his Birthday and I was kindly invited to join the usual suspect, Paul, plus Simon and his "bro" and Dave plus family. The weekend promised a mixed bag of weather, with Friday being the better day. With this in mind we elected to tackle the Grade 1 *** scramble up Bristly Ridge. I had done this before, in terrible conditions and was apprehensive about the "re-match". After some creative navigating by Hugh, which nearly saw us climb the west side of Tryfan, we reached the start of Sinister Gully. This is a steep and (for a grade 1) challenging job of work. I have borrowed a picture from the Internet to give you an idea of what is all about (we did not have the rope though). After a challenging but fun scramble up the gully, we were over the worst and apart from the Pinnacle Gap, (Bit of a downclimb which can be avoided via an exposed traverse to the left) we hit the top of Glyder Fach. Posing for the obligatory picture on the Cantilever Stone, we scoffed butties and traversed the ridge, taking in Glyder Fawr, before descending back into Ogwen via the Devils Kitchen. A pint of something cold at the Bryn Tyrch and a few more back at the campsite saw us feeling pretty pleased with the days work.

We awoke Saturday to low cloud and drizzle, which put paid to plans of a scramble we had planned on Snowdon. With the weather set in for the day, we decided to visit The Beacon, a local climbing wall, where we had a couple of hours on the bouldering walls and had a good time traversing routes and basically keeping dry.

After checking the forecast for the rest of the weekend, we reluctantly decided to call it a day (or a weekend) and broke camp on Saturday evening, pausing only to grab a steak at the Bryn Tyrch and returning home.

He Came, He Saw, He......Cragged!!

As I have mentioned before, I am always looking for something a little different to do when outdoors. I had started to do a bit of climbing at my local climbing wall to improve my foot work for scrambling, which is something I am interested in. I am now finding climbing one of those frustrating pastimes, one which I am completely addicted to, but not that good at. I was especially intrigued by the idea that it is a lot different on actual rock, than the indoor wall. This last week, I have been fortunate to try and remedy this skill gap. I spent two days of contrasting weather in Wales with Rob of Expeditionguide.com on an intro to climbing course. On the drier first day we looked at several single pitch climbs. I managed to top out one at "severe" as well as a couple of V Diff. I sadly could not negotiate the crux of the VS climb we tried. The following day we had a bash at a two pitch climb. (Boo Boo (HVD)) which I got up quite nicely. I was a little more apprehensive about the lengthy abseil down Yogi (VS 4b). The day was rounded off with some ungraded single pitch stuff around Llanberis before a trip to the legendary Pete's Eats.

A chance conversation with my neighbour the day after revealed that he was returning to climbing after an absence of a few years and asked me along to a morning at Anglezarke Quarry with a friend of his for some single pitch climbing (My attitude to heights has not completely gone so 8-10 metres was quiet enough thank you). The vertical gritstone of Lancashire was in contrast to dolerite of Tremadog. With little in the way of "juggy" holds I struggled to ascend anything, scraping over the crux of Aldreds Original (V Diff) but got "becalmed" 2/3rd of the way up "Wedge" (HS 4b).

Whether I get frustrated with this new direction, or get sufficiently bloody minded to try and "improve my grade" I am not sure. The mental aspect, as well as the energy sapping is keeping my attention for now. The fear of falling is perhaps holding me back a little (Although I came away a couple of times today)

The first picture is of "Tim" a guy on the intro course, who climbs like a mountain goat in trainers, so will be handy in proper shoes and the second is me, taken by Rob, whilst I was holding an abseil about five minutes before the first picture.