Back on the Ben

Yesterday, for the first time in 3 years, I got a climb in on the Ben.
The previous 2 winter seasons I have been sidelined with my ongoing foot injury, and the other year I didn't climb up there was due to the superb Welsh winter, no need for the 11hr round trip!

Anyway, I teamed up with Dan as usual, and we opted to climb, 'Good Friday Climb', dependant on the condition of Observatory gully.  On arrival at the base of OG a few teams were already heading up and a nice track was in place. The snow was fairly deep, but not so much slab. The only slab we encountered was on the traverse in to Indicator wall from OG where care needed to be taken.
With a good forecast it was obviously busy, and teams were also on, Indicator wall, Smiths route, Tower Scoop, Point 5, Tower ridge, Ledge route and the Castle gully's, with plenty heading up into the Cieste as we passed.

We got 4 pitches out of Good Friday, but protection was incredibly sparse. The gear placements were hard to find under powder, and also well chocked with ice, think 6 or 7 pieces went in on the whole route, with a couple of 25-30m run-out's!
The 1st pitch was deep powder for the 1st 20m or so, then fairly good neve, upto a good ice screw belay on the right just beneath the vertical wall.
The 2nd pitch was the crux, which had a couple of pieces of gear, but the ice was poor to pull over the crux ice step. This led to a belay on the left.
The 3rd pitch was very run out. 1 runner in a 45m pitch! And the final short pitch was straight forward over a small cornice.

    Dan enjoying seconding the 1st pitch

A good day out, and good to be swinging the axes once more!!

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 Friday night video on UKC

Ukclimbing.com  http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/ has this week chose my recent video of our day enjoying the ice over in Cwm Idwal as their Friday night video of the week!
Its always the way aint it, my video in question was slapped together in 30 mins after the days climbing, and id be the first to say it isnt one of my better productions!
The video can be viewed on UKC's website here http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=51305 , on the video wall or below.

Idwal Cwm Ice.....

With the current conditions in Snowdonia, i wasted no time in getting back in the groove and took the axes over to Idwal cwm to get a couple of routes in, as i previously heard things were lookin well. Dan and i got an earlyish start as we knew today was going to be pretty busy. We plodded into the Cwm, where as most areas in Snowdonia, has a huge ammount of snow at preseent, our aim was to head for one of the steeper lines, but more importantly, one that didnt have a queue at the bottom!

We headeed for a look in the Devils Kitchen, but after reaching the rear of the Kitchen it was apparent this was one of the few routes that isnt yet in condition. Far too thin, and far too much water for my liking!

We moved round to the Devils Pasteure which was in good shape, Dan took the honours on the 1st steep pitch and dispatched that without any problems, I then led the 2nd chimney pitch which brought us to the top of the crag.

Time for a quick coffee, then round to have a look at the Devils Cellar (IV). On arrival, teams were on both the left and right hand lines, and after a short wait we opted for the right hand line, which was much less of a bowling alley of ice from the above climbers. I took the sharp end for the first steep pitch, which was brilliantly steep and sustaining, then Dan took the lead for the second pitch which was in stonking condition, with a pretty tricky finnish.

That wrapped a fantastic day for us, a bit surreal for me, having been relaxing in 30 degree heat 2 days ago, and today i was getting plastered, mid pitch, with lengthy bursts of spindrift!

I really dont know which i prefer!!

Ice lurchers

Just managed to re-find this short film produced by Mountainplan. It was filmed at a weekend earlier on in the year, which we spent at lurchers.
As you can see me and Dan had fantastic conditions and the crag to ourselves!
Enjoy!


Ice lurchers
Video sent by MountainPlanTV