New Ropes!

Thanks to a new sponsorship deal with the Association of Mountaineering Instructors, I’m now in possession of a very bright and shiny new set of ‘Tendon’ climbing ropes.

I was very keen to get out up a cliff somewhere, but there was more pressing office work to be done first. Working indoors on such a glorious day was made better by having the option of a lunch time river swim with Clare though!

By the time the work was done, the skies had started to cloud over and on arrival in Cwm Idwal, John and I were somewhat disappointed to find warm rain suddenly pouring from the skies!

Even with the most optimistic thoughts, it didn’t take long to damped the rocks enough to discourage us from our plan. We sat it out under a boulder for a while but the midges were next to arrive and helped to convince us that it wasn’t an evening to be hanging around. We descended back to the van for a Plan B.

Back at the van, we re-grouped and decided a scramble on Tryfan would be a better option, as by moving fast over easier ground we’d not have time to be bothered by midges.

In the end, by the time we’d hiked up to the Heather Terrace, things dried up enough to do the classic climb ‘Grooved Arête‘ on the east face. The new ropes were by now safely stashed in the van and we’d resorted to taking an old ‘single’ mountaineering rope as that would work better for the climb.

We went as fast as we could, conscious that we’d popped out for a quick climb and now found ourselves on top of Tryfan! My one snack bar and small bottle of water were only just enough to keep me going in the warm and muggy conditions.

It was 35mins to the heather terrace start, where we arrived at the base of the route at 18:20 and were on the summit by 20:00.

After climbing in the swirling warm mists, it was cool to top out on the summit ridge where the sun was just glimpsing through. All very eerie and atmospheric.