Cwm Llugwy and a bit of gully action!

Back up into the mountains today, but this time without any static weirdness or lightning bolts! There has been more fresh snow put down last night, so we headed up into Cwm Llugwy to get up into the deep stuff!

The service road from the A5 gives a quick and easy (albit rather steep at first) way into the mountains.

The fresh snow got deeper and drier as we ascended. We took turns breaking trail, as it was quite hard work at times.

Up near the Llugwy Reservoir, we came across some beautifully shaped drifts that were over waist deep, so stopped to do some digging and built a few little snow shelters. The wild ponies, looked like they could do with a bit of shelter too! Tough guys!

We didn’t have time to climb the headwall at the back of the Cwm, up onto the ridge, so instead chose a more direct (but steeper) route up onto the flanks of Pen y Helig Ddu, which provided some great sport and excitement for the group of students that I was leading! The snow was very powdery and unconsolidated, so needed a kind of part swimming, part bulldozing climbing technique at times

It was well worth the effort and we soon found ourselves onto, with some fantastic views of Ogwen and the Carneddau. One of the nice things about winter, is that the mountains change so much with a covering of snow. In summer conditions, our route of ascent would have been almost impossible, (or at least very unpleasant!) but once the snow packs into unseen gullies it creates a whole new range of options.