Woke up early and walked out from The Cottage with Clare in warm autumnal sunshine. A beautiful start to a day. Unfortunately, Clare had work commitments, so Dave and I planned to go climbing together, while Clare stayed back at the office. It felt too good a day for DIY!

We drove around to Tremadog and we soon getting the ropes out. We climbed at Craig y Castell to give maximum sunshine exposure and warmth. Couldn’t believe it was warm enough for t-shirts though!

I’d climbed these routes before, but over a decade ago, so memories of them were severly limited! We wanted to try a route called Salix, but it was looking a bit overgrown. It was great to be on warm grippy rock on a two-star route in the sun, with a good pal.

We climbed, joked, sweated and talked our way up to the top tree belay, where all manner of slings and ropes were rigged to make us safe. We cut away the old tat and left a nice new (safe!) abseil station for the next ascensionists.

The sun moved slowly around the sky as we climbed our second route, billed as one of the best in the area at the grade. It was an amenable grade, but you had to stay focused – especially on the alarming traverses. I had a flashback to doing the second traverse from when I was at university – far less skilled and with far less kit!

Another couple of abseils and a bit of cleaning of Salix and we decided to call it a day.

Later that night, I went to a lecture about ski expeditioning by Dave Wynne-Jones, who had some good slides about exploring unclimbed mountains in Krygystan and other far flung places. Good to have to ideas for future travels…

Tremadog Climbs:

• Mensor, VS (4b,4c)**
• Craig Ddu Wall, HS (4b,4b)***