There’s been a tantalising dusting of snow across North Wales over the weekend and temperatures have been very low, which peaked my winter climbing curiosity! With a clear(ish) day of weather forecast, we decided to postpone our planned day of rest and go and see what winter conditions prevailed.

When the alarm went off, I wasn’t really feeing like diving out of a warm bed and sweating up a cold mountain, but knowing that this was the best ‘weather day’ I had free, I convinced myself to get moving. It was -2°C in the Ogwen Valley and the skies looked really clear as we set off, somewhat bleary eyed into the day.

The ground was frozen hard, but the snow was only on the higher ground. There were good ice falls forming in Cwm Idwal, but not enough to climb on. We chose to hike into Cwm Lloer. This was to maximise time in the sunshine as well as to be sheltered from the north winds.

It also gave us the option of climbing a gully/ridge if overnight snowfall allowed. As it turned out, there was much more ice than snow, so the hike up to the summit of Pen yr Ole Wen along the rocky ridge appealed much more.

The views were great, and as predicted, we had sun on our back and not too much wind chill. It’s the first winter mountain I’ve been up this year and my legs certainly took a bit of reminding on what to do! Walking uphill has not featured much in our recent activities! Still, with plenty of stops for hot drinks and some left over pizza from last night, we made steady progress.

We looked down the steep gullies as we passed by their tops and were pleased to find that we’d made the right choice as there wasn’t enough snow cover to climb them. At midday, we were on the summit, where it became brutally cold! Without any shelter, the arctic winds cut right through us with a windchill of -15 to -20°C. It felt savage up on the summit plateau, so we didn’t linger for long. It was no place for a picnic!

We toyed with the idea of a circular walk around the top of the cwm above its frozen lake, but decided instead to turn our backs on the wind and return a similar way. Halfway down the ridge near the rocky step, we put on crampons for a safer descent. The ground must have been really saturated over Christmas as there were long flows of ice across all the grassy sections. With spikes on our feet we could walk across these with satisfying ease.

Back in the valley, it felt like it’d been a while since we both sat on the back of the van feeling tired and swapping boots for trainings, anticipating a hot coffee at The Cottage. It was a good feeling.

Then, as a little bonus to an already lovely day, after a trip to the dentist in Caernarfon, I got to enjoy a nice sunset by the water as I walked back to the car.