Friday 25 March

We were raring to go for a social weekend in North Wales. My old friends Dave and Charley had planned a group trip up with the intention of climbing Tryfan and celebrating Dave’s birthday way back in 2020, which – like most other things in 2020 – was thwarted by covid. Excited by the prospect of a long overdue reunion and double excited by the prospect of a long overdue reunion in the mountains, we were up and on the road by 04:15.

We collected Lee on our way up, another old friend and (as we soon found out) an excellent travelling companion totally unphased by most things, including waking up at silly o’clock to set off on random activities. We had a clear run of traffic and crossed the border by 9am. Concrete and tarmac turned into steep, forested, river-bellied valleys, and we stopped at picturesque Betws-y-Coed (a lovely little town whose praises I’ve sung previously) for a snack and a leg stretch.

From “Betsy” we drove along the familiar A5 for 20 minutes, already feeling absorbed by the thick forests and rugged valley sides that tower over the sweeping road. The sky was clear and the sun was already warm when we reached the roadside car park opposite vast, dark Llyn Ogwen, backed by the hulking mass of yellow-green Pen Yr Ole Wen (which is quite high on my to do list). We threw on our already-packed rucksacks, walked along the road to Ogwen Cottage and went through the gateway to the Glyderau mountain range.

Climbing at Idwal Slabs

The path up to Llyn Idwal is well-walked and well kept, and we were pleased to pass a big school group enjoying the sunny outdoors. The unmistakeable, stegosaurus-scale form of dark Tryfan dominated the view to our left and the high ridge of Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr loomed ahead, curving round via the wide, black crack of Devil’s Kitchen to the equally intimidating Y Garn and Foel Goch on the right. The dark, high lake sat thus in a huge, rocky, ancient bowl overlooking the stunning Ogwen Valley. I’ve previously written about this area in more detail – see here for more of that kind of waffle.

Idwal slab is a huge rock face that lies at the head of Llyn Idwal and forms part of the south face of the towering Glyder Fach/Fawr ridge. Its sloping angle, grippy rock and solid cracks makes for good, low grade climbing, so as well as wanting to try it ourselves we thought it’d be good for Lee, who hadn’t really climbed before. We planned to do the classic route “Tennis Shoe” (HS 4b) but there were climbers already on it, so we opted for the easier “The Ordinary Route” (Diff), a “classic” that was recorded as a route way back in 1897.

We roped up and Ryan led the first pitch up a wide, easy crack. Lee followed and I cleaned the gear. Having an extra person was nice because the belayer always had someone to talk to, and I was amazed at how quickly and easily Lee picked it up – I’d been a little worried that a big multi-pitch trad route might be a bit ambitious for a new climber, but I’ve never known anyone so unfazed. Ryan and I alternated leading the route and as we climbed higher, the view of Llyn Idwal and the Ogwen Valley became increasingly impressive and the lake seemed to turn from deep black to a cool blue that contrasted with the bright, sandy yellow of the mountain grass. I could drawl on about the scenery and the captivating wilderness for a long time, but I’ll use some photos instead:

The climbing was straightforward all the way up, with the occasional slightly spicier move, and we didn’t bother changing our approach shoes for climbing shoes. It would have been quite a comfortable free solo until reaching the last couple of pitches and looking down the steep face. The gear placements were generally good (sometimes too good – I spent a good few minutes retrieving one nut) with the occasional weird bare bit where the rock seemed to change, and my last belay point was slightly dubious – I’d got to the end of our 40m rope and ended up pinning myself into an outward-facing seat by slings tightly attached to a nut and a horn either side of me. It was interesting having a third person because we had to choose belay points with space for him to sit or lean, which is something I don’t usually think about.

From the last belay point we scrambled left across less steep but rocky, slightly muddy terrain towards the misleadingly named “walk off”, which took a while to find thanks to the unhelpful description in our Rockfax guide. Eventually we spotted a couple of arrows etched into big rocks and I’m glad we did, as we wouldn’t otherwise have guessed that the way they pointed constituted a “walk”. Fortunately Lee was unfazed once again and we downclimbed a short, steep, rocky scramble that the book suggests is often abseiled. Doing so with a prawn sandwich in one hand probably wasn’t my smartest move, but I’d stopped at the top to put the book back in my bag and came across the irresistible, handy snack.

We reached the bottom unscathed and walked down the sloping bank to rejoin the path alongside Llyn Idwal. We traipsed back to the car the way we came, down the hill that climbs up to Idwal (a glacial “hanging lake” set quite high up), past Ogwen Cottage and a short way along the A5, tempted by a dip in the cool, clear water of Llyn Ogwen and once again blown away by the stunning views and the unbelievably lovely March weather.

A Yaris tour along the North Coast

We left the car park to go and find the holiday cottage via a supermarket. It was six and two threes whether we went back the way we came through Betwys-y-Coed or carried along the A5 and followed the coast around, so we opted for some new scenery and went north west along the valley to the greyish town of Bethesda, then around the top of the national park via the North Wales Expressway, a smooth, wide road that runs along the north coast with the calm, blue sea on one side and hills rising hazily on the other. It felt like we were in a foreign country or a car advert, although poor, peeling Scabbers the Yaris would never make it into one of those.

We stopped at an Asda in Conwy, although it had little right to call itself an Asda – it was barely bigger than a Spar. I was more stressed out by the prospect of shopping than I had been halfway up the rock face, so we collected various fajita ingredients and assorted alcoholic refreshments and scarpered. We found the holiday place about 20 minutes south of Conwy in the middle of nowhere (where nowhere is an agricultural paradise of grassy hills, sprawling fields and long hedgerows), reached via some remarkably steep, narrow, twisty, bumpy country roads.

The House and the Reunion

We rolled onto the wide gravel drive and realised that Charley, the friend who planned the trip, had spoilt us all. We were looking at a beautiful, long, stone barn conversion with a lovely wooden extension and a huge porch. It fronted onto a slate-pebbled yard with lovely countryside views, and had its own open barn containing a hot tub, ping pong table and gas barbecue. It had four double rooms with a shower each, two living areas, a large central kitchen, a fancy staircase, lovely stone floors and a curious way of feeling both cosy and spacious. We saved the master bedroom (complete with balcony and en-suite fit for royalty) for Dave and Charley, Lee took one of the upstairs doubles and Ryan and I had the downstairs double, for alcohol and staircase-related safety reasons on my part.

The three of us unpacked the car and relaxed on comfy sofas until the others arrived. Dave, Charley and Cooper the dalmatian turned up after about an hour, Ryan and I cooked fajitas and we agreed not to drink too much that night – we had to climb Tryfan tomorrow, and it’d be better to save ourselves for Saturday night. Then Matt turned up.

He was earlier than expected and having not seen each other for such a long time (Ryan excepted, who met everyone that day), we must have gotten overexcited because everything took a turn for the worse. Drinks flowed (everywhere) as we caught up with each other, and – although my memory is hazy at best, utterly blank at worst – I think it’s probably a good thing we had the hot tub to contain us.

Saturday 26 March

I woke at 5am on a sofa, which is strange considering Ryan had put me to bed. I woke again about 8am thanks to the delightful sound (which I’ve missed for so long) of Matt cleaning the kitchen. I stood up, fell over for no reason, woke and whinged to Ryan about my bleeding knee, wandered out to say hello to Matt and Dave, and promptly returned to bed. I woke more successfully after about an hour and went to try and make myself useful, although the boys had already removed all traces of Friday night. Someone cooked bacon and somehow we were all in Dave’s car around midday.

The drive to Tryfan was harrowing. There was no avoiding the twisty country roads from the house, but after being on the main road for a while sat nav took us off and along the Gwydyr forest track instead of through Betws-y. It was a sorry excuse for a road, especially in a car full of six hungover people. I’m quite sure it’s the twistiest, bumpiest, narrowest, steepest, roughest road in the whole world, and Charley – who was the worst of all of us – looked like she’d perish at any minute. After about four calendar years we reached the Ogwen Valley and were relieved beyond words to bail out of the car.

Tryfan

Sadly poor Charley was a write-off. She made the sensible (if inevitable) decision that she’d consumed far too much gin to be on a mountain, so the five of us left her in the roadside car park with a window cracked open and trudged off towards the steep north ridge of Tryfan.

The first section involved a lot of rock-hopping and scrambling, and our senses began to clear. The summit is barely a kilometre from the car park as the crow flies and the path follows a fairly straight line, but over 600m of ascent meant that the “walk” was very steep and hands-on, requiring very little progress “across” and a lot of progress “up”. Fortunately there’s no hangover cure like cool mountain air and an imminent risk of death, so we were in good spirits before long. We followed the vague path, guessing the way up every time it stopped at bare rock and taking enough breaks to fully appreciate the incredible views up and down the long, pale golden Ogwen Valley, with dark Llyn Ogwen in its belly, the rugged curve of Y Garn and Foel Goch at its head and lofty Pen yr Ole Wen forming the opposite ridge. We couldn’t have hoped for better weather – the clear skies afforded the best views I’ve ever seen of the Glyderau and Carneddau mountain ranges and the gentle breeze kept us cool.

We stopped at the self-explanatory “cannon” for an obligatory photo, rolled eyes at the false summit and scrambled up the steepening rocks, which became a little exposed on the east side. We hauled ourselves up an extremely photogenic gully, traversed some large gaps and discovered a second cannon, which we decided was even better than the first in that the drop off the edge was much more dangerous, therefore much more irresistible. We decided that standing on it ourselves was fine, but watching the others do the same was extremely nerve-wracking as the faller wouldn’t really have to deal with the catastrophe. Once Matt – probably the most giraffe-like of all of us, and the last one to go up – made his way down from that rock, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

From there it was a fairly short but awkward way along and up, and at the top Adam and Eve appeared like effigies on the rocky summit plateau. Suddenly the view was panoramic and we were delighted, not in the least bit hungover. We did the jump between them to gain the “freedom of Tryfan” (again, watching was much worse than doing, and both were much more comfortable than last time Ryan and I did it in climbing gear and claggy weather), fed off Lee’s magic rucksack full of miscellaneous confectionary, debated why there were eggshells on the ground until deciding that hard boiled eggs are actually an excellent mountain snack, and walked the rocky but less steep and more sociable way down the summit’s sunnier south west face, enjoying the new views over to the Glyder ridge, Y Gribin and the lovely tarn of Llyn Bochlwyd.

The rocky terrain became decidedly boggy and we did our best to avoid the worst bits (especially the deep, sudden, ankle-sized holes) until we reached the well-kept path that goes from Ogwen/Idwal Cottage up to that high lake. We amused each other, notably with stories of snakes, pheasants and bits of badger-related law (thanks Dave), and felt fully recovered from Friday. Eventually the descent levelled out and the walk to Ogwen Cottage was very pleasant, except when – to Matt and Lee’s delight – a passing dog kicked a lump of mud in my hair just as I crouched to examine some frogspawn.

Return

We reached the bottom of the path, grabbed some snacks from the kiosk at the little visitor centre and made our way back along the A5 to Charley, not sure what condition we’d find her in. Luckily sleep had revived her, but the 40 minute drive to a big Tesco near-ish the house was enough to return the rest of us to our sluggish, hungover state, and once again I didn’t enjoy the shop one bit.

Back at the house Dave and Charley cooked lasagne and we spent the evening in a more acceptable way than the previous night, although it did feature the most hectic game of beer/ping pong I’ve ever played (involving six people, five bats, a washing up bowl and ball-repellent cups) and another, more chilled dip in the hot tub.

Sunday 27 March

Moel Siabod

After a lie in and breakfast rolls, we set off about midday for Moel Siabod, a mountain known as a lovely hiking destination that has been on my list for a long time. Once again we drove into the A5 valley through Betws-y, this time parking at the Tyn y Coed pub. We walked a short way along the road, then branched off up a very steep track (a substantial warm up) which eventually brought us to a sheep-spangled moorland covered in high yellow grass. The majestic, sweeping slopes of the mountain lay ahead of us and we enjoyed a near-panoramic view over rugged, rolling peaks, which were broken up into a golden-brown-grey-green patchwork of rock, grass, heather and forest.

Thankfully the path was clear and the gradient eased, so we talked our way up to the base of Moel Siabod’s rocky northeast ridge. A large, dark tarn appeared on our left as the land rose above us on our right, and we continued on feeling a bit fellowship-of-the-ring like until we reached some ruined quarry buildings and a small, deep-looking, almost perfectly round tarn with a sheer back wall. We threw a few stones in (we’re only human) before everyone else’s feeble tosses were put to shame by Lee’s rocket launcher arm, and we carried on along the base of Moel Siabod’s long, steep southeast face through grassy, rocky, heathery terrain until we came to another, larger tarn, Llyn y Foel, the hazy blue-peaked landscape opened up in front of us, and the path disappeared.

After some careful bog avoidance we stopped at the base of the Daear Ddu ridge for a snack, then began the technical part of the ascent. We’d planned to go straight up via Daear Ddu, a grade 1 scramble, but decided at the bottom it’d be safer for us all (especially Cooper) to follow what looked like the more trodden path to the left, which was effectively a scramble up a steep boulderfield away from the ridge’s sheer drop. It was awkward in places, particularly with a slightly nervous dalmatian who wasn’t used to hopping from rock to rock across big, dark gaps, but luckily he was very agile and made it up with some persuasion.

After what felt like a long time we pulled up over the edge of the mountain’s rocky south face onto the summit plateau, which was covered in large lumps of scree and dry, hardy grass. Cooper, who was relieved to be back on solid ground, had the cheek to bound off ahead as if he’d just finished the warm up while the rest of us tramped up to the trig point. Dave in particular did a lot of tramping, as I’d spent a portion of the ascent sneaking rocks into his bag (birthday beats are so 2009), which he only discovered right at the summit. He took it like a champ, and we all gawped at the now fully panoramic view until chilled by the breeze, pointing out the distinctive shapes of Tryfan and Snowdon and the uncountable surrounding peaks, which ranged in colour from hazy grey-blue to golden-yellow to brown and dark green.

The way down was more sociable, involving a walk across to the other side of the plateau, a little bit more scrambling and Cooper-herding across rocks, then joining a clear path through rugged grassland that signified the end of the most awkward terrain. As we made our way down Siabod’s less-steep northwest face the huge, dark blue-lilac forms of the Glyderau mountain range dominated our view to the left and the golden-green Dyffryn Mymbyr valley stretched out ahead of us with its random undulations, which were sometimes rocky, sometimes heathery and sometimes foresty.

We reached an evergreen forest after a long, straight “down” section and only one snack/admire-the-view break. It had that surreal, tranquil quality only found the wildest, remotest woods. Trees, birds, shrubs, spring flowers, mosses, even the stream – everything seemed to thrive in a quiet, old, unimposing way. We walked along the forest track until we reached the bottom of the hill, where the Afon Llugwy flowed white over the fascinating rock formations it had carved. We crossed at an old bridge and walked a short distance along the road back to the cars.

Chinese n Chill

The bar at Tyn y Coed was closed but we made up for it with a drink at Y Stabblau pub in Betws-y-Coed, where we’d eaten after completing the Three Peaks Challenge three years ago. Someone had planted the Chinese takeaway seed which meant the matter was not open for negotiation as we all fancied it so much, so we went back to the house, showered and regrouped in the big kitchen. After some faff trying to find a fairly nearby takeaway that was open and answering the phone, we sent Dave and Ryan off to collect the treasure after what felt like a 10-year wait. That Chinese tasted so good.

Before we ate Charley broke the wonderful news that she’d managed to get the following morning off work, so they could stay the night rather than driving back. We had a lovely evening playing ring of fire and cards against humanity (which was particularly memorable thanks to Matt’s unrepeatable answer to the “you can’t put *blank* inside *blank*” card), talking in the kitchen for ages and polishing off an unholy amount of leftover takeaway. Once again I stumbled into bed, but thankfully this time I managed to stay there all night.

Monday 28 March

Dave and Charley left early and again Matt took the lead on cleaning up the house. We had breakfast, packed up, said bye to Matt and left at 10am. Lee, Ryan and I wanted to make the most of the day without getting home too late, so we headed through the heart of the national park to Coed y Brenin forest park and set off on the 4-mile Gain Waterfall hiking trail (but not before a quick visit to the mountain bike shop and an avowal to come back for those trails another time, having only ridden the blue Minotaur trail previously).

Gain Waterfall trail

It was a lovely, well-marked route along a gravel path that took us through high, fragrant pines, across a shrubby, heathery plain overlooking the distinctive Rhinog mountain range, down a twisty valley and along the fairytale-like Afon Gain and Afon Mawddach rivers. We passed the ruins of an old gold mine and some stunning, high waterfalls which tumbled and rushed into copper-coloured plunge pools. Like the woods on the way down from Moel Siabod it was almost absurdly tranquil and timeless, and neither a dinosaur, a medieval vagabond nor a Victorian gold panner would have looked out of place in the old forest.

Home

After a sandwich and a drink in the visitor centre, we set off home. We talked for the full four or five hours, only stopping once in a pretty town with a funny hybrid petrol station/co-op/garden centre place to get petrol and cannonball-sized scotch eggs, and the sunny drive back through the Welsh/English countryside was way better than the motorway.

All in all a top weekend with top weather, top scenery, top accommodation and top people. 10/10 would recommend.