A Quick Pyramid Gully Blast

Well, we hit the Ladders, and yes, we got on Pyramid gully IV,5.!!
At 4.30am the unwelcomed sound of my alarm awoke me to find a fresh dusting of snow on the roads outside. I had my doubts about even being able to get over to Snowdonia today, i thought the roads could well be a nightmare, fortunatley the gritters did a sterling job and we arrived in Gerlan in good time.

The walk in was as tedious as ever, even more so as the crag was covered with the low cloud base. It took as longer than expected to locate the route as the visibility was very poor and extreamley persistant.

We approached from the right of Pyramid Buttress, passing Central gully where the inital ice pitch i climbed a few weeks ago was a hell of a lot thinner, probably not even climbable in its current state.

So, I got underway with the first steep pitch of Pyramid Gully which I found to be the crux. 5 or 6 moves were tricky where the ice steepend to pretty much vertical. Straight from the off, we had to be very careful with the ice, it was of the hard, brittle, dinner plating sort, the sort which is difficult to get a good placement as it constantly breaks away, and the sort which could also knock out your belayer!!!!

After bringing Dan up, i got going on the second pitch as Dan fell a bit ill and feeling lethargic, didnt have the strength to take the lead. The second pitch again had a nice ice pitch at the start, which was easier than the ice section on the first pitch, and made for good climbing, although i did have to battle through the huge ammounts of spindrift avalanches pouring down! The top of the ice section brought me to a ledge, a right turn and up a neve gully with a couple of ice steps to a belay on the right hand side. Here we de-geared and soloed the last 100m of grade 1 ground, on fantastic neve which brought us up to the plateau.

We heared a few other teams out, but couldnt tell what was being climbed as the visibility didnt break above 700m all morning. We spoke to a team who made a quick ascent of Eastern Gully who reported good neve, and spoke to a team who opted for Central Gully, though that was pre climb.
All in all, still lots to go at on the Ladders, and things seem to be improving by the day. Still a good ammount of ice knocking about, although as above, what we found was very britle, and if the low temps remain things could fatten up. Neve was brilliant although was topped with a few inches of graupel and powder which has recently fell, so an eye should be kept on the day to day snowfall as avalanche conditions could well build.




A good short day, and a route thats been on the tick list finally got climbed.
If you fancy a low in the grade IV,5 then Pyramid Gully is for you!!

Lets hope it continues.................

The Ladders are ON....

Cant wait for tomorrow. Heading over to the Black Ladders, hopefully will get on Pyramid Gully which i have wanted to climb for a while now, fingers crossed it will be free!
The winter conditions in Snowdonia have got progressively better throughout the latter part of the week, and with last night and tonights colder temps, things should be looking pretty good.
I would think many of the higher crags, e.g the Trinity face will be busy tomorrow, thats where the best conditions will be found as they will be least effected by the recent thaw.

The ladders look a bit thinner than when we last were there climbing Gallipoli, but still plenty to go at, and Baggy  http://wwwbaggy.blogspot.com/  reports 14 teams were out today!

Weather wise, its not looking as good a day as today, but still, its not too bad!
Some snow showers are expected during the morning, a bit of wind and some brief spells of poor visibility, but nothing too harsh is due.

Gallipoli

A nightmare morning yesterday, involving helping a women get her car out of the snow, getting our own car in a bit of a mess and to top it all a confrontation with a crazy guy at a petrol station all led to us getting a late start on Gallipoli on the Black Ladders. For those who dont know the Black Ladders, a late start here isnt the best. Most of the routes are long, serious, often involve difficult route finding and we also encountered lots of soft, deep, powder, making things pretty slow going.

We finaly got on the route, Gallipoli (V,5). The route can be accessed by either taking the start for central gully, or taking a start a touch further right. We opted for the cental gully start as the first pitch was a brilliantly formed ice funnel that needed to be climbed. From here the route takes easy ground to a groove on the right which is set in a snow bay. This is climbed via ice, turf and vegitation to a peg belay above. It turned out to be a tricky pitch with a doddgy leftward step mid height to get off the thinning ice which was also hollow and breaking away under my feet, to reach a steep slope of turf and vegitation.

Dan led the next pitch which traversed left, then a tight squeeze between the buttress and an isolated arete led to a thin ice slab which was virtualy un-protectable until some 20m above. Dan setup a belay for the next pitch which i led, taking the easy slope, brought me to a steep, short wall which was infact overhanging  with vegitation. This i climbed on the left, in the slightist of grooves, hooking and torquing my way up, a final big move onto a ledge was needed to reach a good belay, thankfully the axes held! Dan took the honours and pulled back right to get over the lip of the overhanging wall, a difficult couple of moves, this wasnt the place to be digging around in the powder for an axe placement, but there really wasnt much scope. Dan soon passed his difficulties and an easyish groove ahead found a good belay spike. At this point the remainder of the route would have to be climbed by headtorch, as always, darkness seemed to arrive suddenly!! I arrived at Dans belay, a quick rack swap and i was off. the groove continued for another 20m, then an easy snow slope led us out without any problems.

Conditions wise, the ice was fantastic, where it was thick enough. Brilliant plastic ice where the axe would stick at the first swing. Turf was frozen solid, taking a bomber warthog, although some of the other larger clumps of vegitation didnt seem to want to freeze, care needed to be taken to stick on the turf at these points.

Obviously the whole area was banked with deep powder which made things difficult, and there were patches of windslab in central gully, so other sheltered aspects could be similar. We didnt encounter any neve really, not until the wind scoured upper slope, more time and consolidation needed their i think, but unsure when that will happen as it just keeps on snowing!!