Windy Weather

Sunday 12th January 2014

Snowdonia Winter Skills Course

We slept like the dead last night. After another fry up we piled into the mini bus and were on the road by 9.30am. Dave had worn trainers to drive in today so the journey was a lot smoother. We parked a mile or two further down the road than yesterday and set off up the neighbour of yesterdays hill, Carnydd Dafydd.

The weather started off OK but started closing in a bit by late morning  The clouds were rolling in and as we got higher the wind started picking up. This was exactly what the BBC said would happen, but we were hoping it might be wrong.

By the time we’d made it into the corrie the wind was blowing so hard that we were overbalancing. Especially Sarah, who is like a waif and could do with a bit of meat on her bones. We abandoned the plan of going up to the summit and then down the ridge, for fear of getting blown off and into the lake hundreds of metres below. There wasn’t really much snow left so we spent a while walking on frozen swamps with our crampons on, then when we got too cold headed back down. I was quite relieved as I was wearing all my clothes and still wasn’t warm enough.

When we got back to the Plas Y Brenin centre we had a hot drink whilst watching another group practice ice axe arrests on a muddy snowless slope, and then went to the woods over the road to do some crampon work in a warmer, less windy environment. We were half expecting the session in the woods to be rubbish compared to real snow, but it turned out to be quite useful. There were lots of old slimy railway sleepers leaned up at various angles which we had to cross, using between 2 and all 10 spikes of our crampons. No one had any unfortunate accidents, although there was a near miss when Claire fell over a tree root and then slipped on a muddy rock in her rush to get back to tea and cakes. 

After our chocolate brownies we set off back home. We popped into the Cotswold store in Betws y Coed on the way back and bought ourselves some ice axes. All the purple ones were a bit too technical for me (designed for climbing giant icicles and suchlike), but I settled for a two tone gun metal grey one with a slimmer head to fit my dainty little hands. 

An ice axe could be a devastating weapon in the wrong hands, and I hope that the Staffordshire crooks stick to their rolling pins which seems to be the street fighting weapon of choice these days.

We were glad to get home as we are both tired out, and my eyes were hurting from the cold wind earlier. After draping all our damp gear over the radiators we collapsed onto the sofa and haven't moved since.

We’ve had a really good weekend and hope there’ll be a bit more snow before spring arrives so we can test out our new toys.

Thanks to Darren for being the group photographer and supplying the photos in this and yesterday's blog!