Heat levels rose up another notch today, with temperatures reaching 26 degrees in the shade just after 10am! We’d set aside today for a trip up into the mountains to climb on some of the areas of more remote and lesser travelled crags, while the ground is so dry.

We had a few plans in mind, but given the heat, we opted to spend as little time as possible in the car, so drove the ten minutes up into the Ogwen Valley and hiked into the Carrneddau mountains, feeling like we were in the alps.

You get a different perspective of the mountains from ‘over this side’, with Tryfan looking particularly dramatic.

Craig Lloer, doesn’t look that impressive from this photo (the buttresses in the centre right of the photo), but the climbs are all three pitches long and no push over.

The base of the crag was a total sun trap without a breath of wind, but up on the exposed ridge, we had to hang on and put jackets on!

Sunny rock, great views and not a soul around. Lovely stuff!

We climbed one of the easier rocky ridges, which it turned out, we’d not done before, then descended a big gully on the left of the crag back to the bags, for lunch. A brief bit of unexpected email admin on my phone almost de-railed the vibe, but once that was dealt with, we continued up another route which felt somewhat harder than advertised!

By now the sun had left the crag, but it was probably a good thing to not be out in the full force of the sun.

We climbed the three pitches of ‘The Rib’, which felt quite tricky and rather bold at times for the grade. Probably because it doesn’t get climbed that much? Good rock all the way though and certainly very grippy!

It was getting on for 15:30 when we descended the gully again back to the bags. We were due to be meeting Neil and co in Menai Bridge at 18:00, so packed up and wandered back into the sunshine.

The lake in the Cwm had a cute little team of fresh duckling in it.

Then all that was left was the hike back to the road. We had planned on a swim on the way home, but time was against us. We opted instead for a ten minute snooze in the garden before showers and meeting the others for pre-dinner drinks and then a lovely meal out. A splendid holiday day.

Cwm Lloer (Craig Lloer) Climbs:

• North Arete, Diff*
• The Rib, Severe, * (maybe a bit harder?!)