'Summer' starts!

Last week was the start of my 'Summer' work! Things kicked off with a group doing the 3 peaks in 3 days with Maximum Adventure. Unfortunately no-one has told Ben Nevis that it's Spring yet and we were met with pretty full on winter conditions. The team did remarkably well but at 1200m we decided to call it a day. Even though the group was will equipped for Spring/Summer, this was not enough to safely make it to the summit. A great effort from everyone though!

                                   

Last Saturday I was working for West Coast Mountain Guides to help a team of 600 pupils and teachers from various schools in the Lanarkshire area walk the last section of the West Highland way from Altnafeadh in Glencoe through to Fort William. The weather was kind to us and the massive group did realy well, raising lots of money for charity and having a good day out at the same time!

The Buachaille from the top of the Devil's Staircase

With a fairly poor forecast for the week and the need to rack up some more climbs for my logbook Davie and I headed to North Wales on Monday for some climbing. We arrived in Llanberris Pass about 1600hrs and headed straight onto Dinas Mot to do Western Slabs (VS 4c). A couple of nice pitches and a cheeky move on the crux saw us abbing down western gully and back to pitch the tent.

With a cracking forecast we headed to South Stack on Gogarth on Tuesday and got a few routes done including Lighthouse Arete Direct( VS 4c), Poseidon/Blanco (HVS 5a) and Pel (VS 4c)

Davie on Light House Arete Direct P1

Abbing back down

Top of P1 Poseidon/Blanco 

Starting up Pel

What a place to be!

On Wednesday we headed to Tremadog and got to climb some fantastic routes including Merlin Direct (HVS 5a), One Step in the Clouds (VS 4c) and Christmas Curry/Treemadock Finish (VS 4c). A brew and a chip butty in Eric's Cafe saw us fuelled and ready to head back to the Pass.

Needing to stock up on a few calories on Thursday, we headed to Pete's Eats for a slap up breakfast before going to the Idwal slabs on Cwm Idwal. Heather Wall (VS 4c) was first on the list followed by Original Route (VS 5a). After a polished descent on the 'Easy Way Off' we called it a day. 

Camping in the Pass

Fantastic weather combined with great climbing led to some really memorable days and I'm looking forward to another trip to Wales in the future.