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Advanced Scrambling Learn to Lead

For the second day of our advanced scrambling learn to lead course we wanted to spend the day looking at leading easy rock climbs, such as those found on grade 3 scrambles. We based ourselves at Tryfan Bach to avoid the winds up high and looked at gear placements, building belays and getting Jim & Julie leading and abseiling in a multi pitch setting.

Scrambling on Tryfan

Some high winds were forecast today and indeed they did arrive, a couple of hours earlier than expected too with 70mph gusts on the summits. Our plan allowed us to stay low and miss them and Julia, Jim and I headed up Milestone Buttress via the grade 3 scramble, up the Milestone Continuation (3), up the North Ridge (1) and then down Bastow Buttress Variant (2). The rain kicked in about lunch time but we had lovely dry rock until then.

Advanced Scrambling

I have been joined for the last two days by Angie and repeat client Julia for an advanced scrambling course here in Snowdonia. We were very lucky yesterday and did not feel the impact of the storm, we headed into Cwm Idwal and did a journey around the slabs taking in NW Face Route & The Idwal Staircase and looking at ascent and descent.

Today we headed up the East Ridge of Y Garn (2/3) and then descended the Devils Kitchen (under the Devils Appendix) before climbing the first pitch of Ordinary Route (Diff) on the Slabs and abseiling off, another great day with little wind and only the odd shower.

Llanberis MRT Exercise

We have had a training exercise in the quarries this weekend with Llanberis MRT which has been lots of fun. Whilst the weather has been forecast to be rough it has actually stayed dry today and the winds have not been much higher than they have been over the last couple of weeks, lets see what tonight brings! 

Slate Day

Harriet, Marcus and I headed into the slate quarries today in search of dry rock to climb. The plan worked surprisingly well and we ticked off some climbing as well as covering lots of skills between the showers and managed to stay dry on the whole. The beauty of slate is that it does dry very quickly, especially with a good breeze such as we have had today.

Climbing in the sunshine

It has been a beautiful day here in Snowdonia, I have been climbing at Holyhead Mountain on Anglesey with repeat clients Harriet and Marcus. They have done some scrambling with me and wanted to get climbing outdoors so we have had a lovely day ticking routes off, single pitch and two pitch, in the warm Autumn sunshine. Superb!

Smashing it Up

Sat in the cafe this morning Simon told me he wasn't fussed about trying to learn anything, he just wanted to smash it up. Regular readers of this blog will recognise Simon as he has been out with me a lot, so I was not surprised. We decided on a scrambling day as it has been raining heavily and the winds were forecast to hit 70mph at times on the summits. 

We headed up Dolmen Ridge (3), down the Gribin Ridge (1), down the Cneifion Arete (3), down Seniors Gully (1), up onto North West Face Route (2) which we then descended into Cwm Idwal. A Small Adventure!

Advanced Scrambling

Gary, Michael and I spent the day looking at the skills involved in leading roped scrambles today. We based ourselves in the Llanberis Pass and looked specifically at anchor selection, placing gear, building belays, short pitching and abseil descents as well as discussing the issues of speed versus safety in this type of ground. It was showery but not too bad although the wind was picking up throughout the day.