Winter scenes in Snowdonia at the moment and it’s been a real delight to be working up in the snow and ice of the mountains with some keen students.

Today I was running a skills course for some young mountaineers. The winter element added a bit of extra ‘value’ to what they’d signed up for as between the blue skies, there were blizzards blowing through all day!

But between the showers, the views were of superb clarity…

After making our way up and above the snow line, some steeper ground gave way to the plateau and the perfect place to have to navigate using a compass bearing!

It was really good to show a technique in context – and for them to see its use as we walked on, keeping the faith following the set bearing, with no identifiable features.

Happily, after pacing our way through the ‘white room’, the summit flag pole loomed into view – which rather oddly was flying the Royal Banner of Scotland, rather than the usual Welsh flag? We mused that perhaps we had got our navigation wrong and really were lost!

However, despite a recent Scottish invasion, all was well and after resetting the compass, successfully navigated across to Machlyn Reservoir, passing some thick ice on the little ponds.

All that was left to do was navigate easily down the service road, after a warm drink and little bit of snow art – a great day.