11 hours on the hill? sounds like a good day to me...

High pressure guaranteed for the weekend at least. You know what that means. Time to go away climbing in the sun! After some hasty planning at a bbq Me, Andy, Laura and Chris Prescott crammed into jess late on a friday night and headed to wales. We were on a time schedule as we didn't to miss the pub. So 2 hours later we where settled around a table, huddled over a guide book enjoying a nice cold pint of XB.

I didn't realise how much I missed being in the Vaynol Arms until I got back in there. Since its been taken over everyone seems to complain that most of the climbing gear has been taken down etc. As far as I'm concerned I still see the same familiar faces in there (people from the Ceunant), the atmosphere is still that of a pub full of climbers relaxing after a hard day and usually planning another, guidebooks still litter the tables and the beer, if anything, is better. We somehow managed to snag some table service on the saturday night as well.


As the for lack of climbing gear, it seems to have just been spread out around the pub instead. You just have to check out the light above the pool table to see some of the new stuff thats been added.


Enough of the pub. Seeing as earlier in the week Laura had mentioned wanting to do Grooved Arete on the East face of Tryfan most of planning for saturday was around that. Laura has never been out on a bit mutli-pitch mountain day before so she's never encountered all the fun (or problems) of route finding, weather, carrying extra kit and getting down. I figured starting on Milestone Buttress would make for an easy start to the day and then she could see how she coped with it. Then we would head around to Tryfan's East face. Descending we would either head down the south ridge and round or take the north ridge.It would depend on how much time we had and how my daylight was left. Laura had no head torch.

With a plan like this we needed to be off the mountain before dark, so an early start was in order. I say needed but what I meant was it would make life easier and we wouldn't miss the pub. We got up nice a early saturday, breakfasted and headed to Llanberis as I wanted to buy some "torque nuts". I'll try to not rave on about them too much, but they were bloody fantastic. As I don't normally carry hexs on account of mine being BD wired versions and instead rely on cams these things were a delight to use. I seriously don't know how I managed without them on my rack. Plus I can also bash seagulls and sport climbers with them. We then headed back to the campsite to pick up all the stuff we'd left in the tents ie, water bottles, batteries etc.

We pulled off the road under Milestone and piled out of the car. Andy had brought a set of 60m 7mm twin ropes with him and was suffering some intense ribbing for climbing on "washing lines". Our plan was for me and Prescott to do the Super Direct (HVS 5a) and for Laura and Andy to do Direct Route (VD). They had to cue to start, but our route was harder so we figured we finish about the same time.

I've never climber with Prescott before, but 10 minutes after gearing up I found myself dangling of my only piece of gear asking to be lowered off by him. My feet had slipped off the start and I'd falled whilst trying to clip my second runner. I blame the fact I was wearing a sack so I ditched it in favour of hauling it up and headed off again. I sored up this pitch and hauled the sack with no problems and brought up Prescott. At the belay there was no faffing and we headed off (with sack on my back this time as the pitch wonders a little). This had been the crux for me last time as it was a little damp, but I sent it with no difficulty this time. At the belay I ended up abseiling back down to rescue a stuck forged friend for the party climbing next to me. I'm not sure why I abseiled down half my route, I was just enjoying myself so much I didn't want the fun to end for anyone else.

At the belay we eyed up the last pitch. I have done it before, so I knew what to expect and seeing as we could scramble back down to the belay we left the bags behind. Doing the last pitch with sack would have been hard enough anyway. I set out across this pitch thinking it was way harder than the last time. I just ended up dead hanging off my arms eventually. As I shuffled outwards on my arms, I reached for a good break in the flake and stuffed in a size 2 cam, upside down. As I did this Prescott let out a "phew" on account that my only other piece of gear had just be waggled out. The fall didn't bear thinking about. The final groove was also as hard as I rememebered, having a stiff move out to the right. When Prescott came up, he found a secret hold deep in the crack which I'd missed.

We basked in the sun waiting for Laura and Andy. As time passed, we nipped back down to find out where they'd got to. As it happened they'd had a bit of fun route finding, getting stuck and swapping leads so they where only starting up the second pitch. We encrouaged them up and generally lazed around till we were all standing below the final pitch... the dreaded chimney. For some dumb reason I bet Prescott a Beer I could climb it with a rucksack on. Scoll forward in time 20 minutes in time to see me thrutching, squeeling and slowly making my way somewhere between almost irretrivably wdged and upward progress. What can I say it was fun.

Laura then sensibly lead the chimney without a sack on. We deracked and then moved round to the east face of Tryfan. This happened to be cleverly avoiding all the excellent weather and keeping us in the shade all day. My plans ar not always well thought out. The east face is much further than I thought. For some reason in my head its just round the corner, which isn't far wrong. The corner however happens to be mostly the north ridge of Tryfan. Its a big corner. We decided that I would lead with Laura and that Andy and Prescott would alternate leads up Grooved arete in a effort to move as quick as possible. Time was ticking away now and we wanted to get down before it got dark.

We raced each other gearing off first and somehow I got the drop on Prescott and set off first. I'd planned to use my guide plate all the way up for some hands free belaying, meaning I could still eat and drink and we could still move quickly. Grooved arete is an awesome mountain route. At HVD its just challeneging enough with a bag on, yet still easy enough to move quickly. And almost each pitch of the route is seperated by a short walk making it more like a bunch of single pitch climbs. Me and Laura climbed as quick as we could. The weather actually started to worry me at one point. I guess the wet sea air was carried down the Ogwen Vally and up over Tryfan, but enough of my "meteorological explanations", basically there was cloud cover and a lot of it, as in FOG. I couldn't see the guys beneath us for a while. Having done the route before I kind of knew where is was headinfg and started up the final buttress section.

For some reason I was being overly enthusiastic with my gear placements and pretty much emptied my entire rack into each pitch. I do blame the new torque nuts as I know I placed the green one every pitch bar one. Making the knights move across the chequered slab was defiantly worth all the climbing, especially since this time I didn't have my stupid big boots on. The final groove was made all the more entertaining by watching Laura actually trust hanging off a belay. Considering the drop below I should have been nicer, but I figured it was good training for Gogarth at the end of the day. With only one pitch left after the final groove we took our time. I lazily took the most obvious line up it and we sat around waiting on the summit for a little.

After what seemed like an hour, I got up to see if I could see them. Prescott and Andy were no where to be seen and after much shouting, I still got nothing. I settled back down, figuring that we'd heard no cries for help or anything and waited a bit longer. I eventually got cold and restless and went looking and yelling again. This time they shouted back! Woohoo! One they were alive and two they were close to finishing. By this time I'd resided myself to the fact that we were going to have to walk some of the way down in the dark. As the North Ridge was most direct and we had enough gear to abseil off anything I'd already made the decision that it would be our descent. I decided that going fast and light meant I'd ditch lots of warm clothing taking only a bodywarmer and windshirt, and replacing it with more metal things. Fast and light only works if everyone on the team is fast and therefore I was stuck waiting in the cold in my light clothing.

Eventually we were all on the summit and I got an opptunity to do something I didn't want. Andy had left a nut in on the final pitch and I offered to fetch it out (you could walk out anyway) but I'd coiled my ropes so off I abseiled on Andy's 7mm washing lines. Lets just say I was damn glad I had gloves on. I should have added an extra karabiner to increase the breaking. It was a pretty quick ride, but I got the nut out (a nice blue shiny offset) and all was good.

We started our descent at 2000. I had already figured out that it would get dark well before we were off the mountain and resided to this fact I decided to focus of possibly the more important issue at hand... getting down before last orders at the pub. What proceeded was a speedy descent with some excellent route finding from Prescott, meaning we got down in about 2 hours. Considering it was pitch black to finish and Laura had no head torch we did bloody well. More than enough time to grab some chips and hit the pub.

As it happens last orders turned out to be more like 12, so three pints down we stumbled back to the tents, intent on an easy day sunday (see the really bad joke) .

As it happened I woke up and look at the sky through the little window in my tent. I looked grey and gloomy, so I put the kettle on and snuggled back down in my sleeping bag. After the first brew, I heard movement and started the "extricating myself from the sleeping bag and tent" proceedings. This took longer than nessessary as it was actually cold. After a brief and almost disasterous incident involing a full bladder, my being really lazy and the amount of water left over from 3 pints, I decided to actually get up. Cue pete's eats.

So we headed to the Gribben Facet or Clogwyn y Traw as it is in North Wales Rock. There was a couple of climbs I wanted to do there personally and it was an easy walk in from Idwal car park, across a bog. We headed straight for Herford's Crack, HVS 5a. Arriving at the base of it I looked up at a near perfect splitter, well as perfect as possible for rhyolite (it had 1 metre offwidth section in the middle). The party before me jokingly advised the use of 8 size 3 cams. I looked down at my rack and replied with "I've only got one... but I've got a few half sizes and some torque nuts (see bringing them up again)". They laughed and wished me luck.

So praying I would have enough gear, and residing to the fact I'd have to run it out a little I set off. The crack climbing was just purely on jams and slightly too small for my hands to begin with. No worries, as I rested on my feet as much as possible and placed my first cam then reached up and cammed in a torque nut. It couldn't have sat more perfectly to be honest. I passed the offwidth with a swift arm bar and a useful facehold (crimp) and started up the final crack section. This happened to be perfect for my handjams and I sored up feeling disappointed when it came to an end. I brought up Prescott and Laura. After a summer of climbing on grit Prescott showed some great jamming technique all the way up, the only thing slowing him down was the cammed torque nuts!. Laura on the other hand hasn't really done any jamming. Prescott yelled up advice and instructions to her and occasionally "no you can't layback it!". She pulled out of the final moves looking stressed yet happy, then promptly colapsed on her back saying she was tired. Crack climbing is fun.

We headed for Diadem (HVS 5a) next. By now we were all feeling tired from the day before, but me and Prescott geared up for it anyway. It took what was descibes as a greasy groove. Prescott protested before I told him that 2 days of good weather would have made it dry. Thankfully it was actually dry when I got into the groove, avoiding an "I told you so". For a 5a it seemed really hard and I ended up empting my rack into a 25 metre pitch. I also screwed up my route finding royally. I managed to turn a 25 metre pitch into a 49 metre pitch by missing the belay and running off up the VD. Prescott agreed about where I'd gone wrong and what a stiff pitch it was. By this point Andy and Laura had taken to finding some sun and bathing in it (bear in mind the crag was in the shade). After almost falling asleep whilst belaying as well, me and Prescott decided that I was time to call it a day.

All in all a good weekend. I've climbed on the Glyder Facet finally, and got some new gear to play with. Laura had her fist mountain day out as well. I know I started this and mentioned climbing in the sun, well infact we didn't get to climb in the sun at all. Milestone doesn't really get the sun and by the time we moved round to the East face, the sun had crossed the sky. The gylder facet doesn't get much sun either. So much for climbing in the sun huh?