By Vicky Ward
Trip Participants: Rob, Conor, Peter, Paul, Owen, Lisa, Tony, Kyle and Vicky
Day 1
Booking a boat at 7am always seems like a good idea at the time – a WHOLE day climbing at Gogarth? Sounds great.
However, the issue with a 7am boat is the 3-4am start. Reality not so great.
Nevertheless we all managed to pull ourselves out of bed and our drivers heroically battled through a caffeine infected haze to Dublin and on to Holyhead. At Holyhead we split into our two groups: those heading off to the Gogarth cliffs and those sticking to the closer Holyhead Mountain.
The Holyhead mountain group enjoyed a range of single pitches on clean rock while Vicky got stuck in the Elephant’s Arse.
A recurrent theme of this trip was the joy of the traverse. Climbing is generally assumed to be an upward sport but on this trip we defied to defy gravity and instead decided to explore movement within the horizontal plane. A traverse a day keeps the doctor away after all. So with this in mind Kyle, Lisa went off to do the classic Dream of white horses (HVS). After many false starts they abseiled down to start their mainly across ascent in the glorious atmosphere of Gogarth.
As the Holyhead Mountain people got back to the cars first they did some quick maths and reckoned that the gaining of one person in their car equated to 3-4 (maybe 5?) extra trad bags in the other car.
With all the climbing done for the day we headed back to our accommodation, the Oread Mountaineering Club Hut, on the slopes of Snowdon for a late dinner at 9.30PM. It was a long day.
Lisa on Dream of White Horses at Gogarth
Day 2
After a bit of a well deserved lie in we decided to head to Tremadog for the day. Also easily the most mispronounced welsh name from our group.
The majority of the group attempted to climb at the heaving Craig Bwlch y Moch. Kyle/Tony did a multipitch weaving its way through maybe a VS, maybe an E2, who knows? Owen/Peter/Rob/Conor/Paul did some climbing somewhere (Oberon?). Meanwhile Vicky/Lisa headed off to do the route “Poor Man’s Peuterey” in order to achieve Lisa’s health goals of a traverse a day.
Having met back up at the café for pasties and coffees we all heading to the delightful single pitch crag of Craig Pant Ifan which felt a bit of a hidden gem (despite the 15minute steep steep steep approach).
With all the climbing done for the day we headed back to our accommodation, the Oread Mountaineering Club Hut, on the slopes of Snowdon for a late dinner at 9.45PM. It was a long day.
Lisa on Spiral Staircase at Dinas Cromlech
Day 3
It seemed like an enthusiastic idea to go to Dinas Cromlech (beside Pen y Pass) on Easter Saturday but we are ambitious. After a few trips up and down the pass we finally completely legitimately parked (albeit bay rather than parallel) within the lines. As we observed throughout the day from our position high on the crag, other parkers started to follow our efficient lead – TREND SETTERS.
We paired off into our climbing pairs with Kyle/Vicky tackling Left Wall (E2)/Sabre Cut (VS); Owen/Tony conquering Cemetery Gates (E1)/Noah’s Warning (VS); and Paul/Peter weaving up Dives (VS). Meanwhile, the remaining trio, Lia/Rob/Conor sauntered across Spiral Staircase (Vdiff) as they had to go sideways for Lisa’s health after all.
With all the climbing done for the day we headed back to our accommodation, the Oread Mountaineering Club Hut, on the slopes of Snowdon for a late dinner at 8.00PM. It was a medium-long day.
Day 4
On the last day a betrayal occurred. Owen and Vicky decided to go running and scrambling instead -the horror of it all! Starting at Pen-y-pass they went up snowdon via crib goch back down the Snowdon ranger for a civilized lunch in Rhyd Ddu before heading back up to do Nantle Ridge and get lost in a forest. Getting lost is adequate punishment for running on a climbing trip.
Meanwhile the rest of the group in a much more civilized manner headed to Clogwyn Cyrau for as many single pitch routes they could squeeze in in a day. Lisa ensured she got her traverse or the world might have fallen in.
We ended the day in a pub having a meal at a reasonable time (7.15PM!) what a pleasant change!
Rob, Conor, Kyle and Lisa at Clogwyn Cyrau
Day 5
It rained. A lot. We went to a café in Llanberis and went home. The End