April Showers have been out in full effect this week, often accompanied by some very strong winds – but in between, there have been some lovely moments of calm as well.

The mountains above The Cottage have gone through various cycles of clear tops and warm blue skies, to being snow covered again!

On the way home from Llanberis, we got caught in an intense hail storm. We were in the car so pulled over to watch the show, which ended as suddenly as it had begun, with a beautiful rainbow. The temperature dropped right down to 4.5°C and later that evening was only 1°C above freezing! Quite a shock after reaching 22°C the day before!

Once the showers pass by the sun soon returned, but much colder air was in its wake.

On Friday we managed to locate a warm, dry and relatively sheltered place to climb, on the north coast.

The short bolted routes of Oak Tree Crag were easy to access and were probably some of the warmest routes to climb, given the drop in temperatures.

There were signs of Spring around with Bluebells and Lambs in the fields.

The afternoon rain held off long enough to enjoy a post climb relax on the beach. We arrived back at The Cottage just as the first drops began to fall and John called over for a coffee too, so it made for a nice end to the day before getting stuck into some pizza making…