Little and Big Tryfan

Today I was out with return clients Angie and Jareth, who arrived with enthusiasm in abundance, despite the overnight storm nearly blowing their tent away. Rich Gentry was also out working for me, with Keiran who is over from Cork, Ireland.

I headed to Little Tryfan to focus on leader placed protection and multipitch climbing skills. For instance, nut, cam, sling placements and building belays along with stance/rope management. This is a two day course making them competent to trad climb in the moutains on their own.

Rich headed for the utmost of classic routes ‘Grooved Arete‘ on Tryfan, guiding Kieran as part of my 1 day climbing courses listed on my website. A great decision based on the howling westerly winds, and they found almost complete solitude up there.

Here are some pictures of Angie and Jareth climbing their way up the gentle routes on Tryfan bach to get them leading on the rock with confidence.

And here are the pictures of Kieran having a blast of a day seconding Rich up 8 pitches of mountain classic. With the famous Knight’s Move on the chequered slab. And Kieran topping it off with a jump across Adam & Eve!

For any more information about the skills based climbing instruction myself and my freelance instructors provide, please visit my website terryjameswalker.com

Scrambling Course – Mont Blanc Prep

The stunning weather has continued in North Wales this weekend, and I was lucky to be working for Ibex Guides, a company run by friends of mine, IFMGA guides Rocio and Owen.  The basis was for six guys to be prepared for a guided ascent of Mont Blanc in a few months time.  So we aimed to cover the basics of ropework, and a large amount of ground, moving quickly and in good coordination with one another on the rope.

It was great to be working with somebody else in this terrain to share ideas and experiences. A new route on Tryfan for me which is very rare these days.

Day 1: we both headed to East Face Tryfan, to do Pinnacle Scramble (3+), which follows a fairly hard purely rock route up the central buttress, finishing on the Summit.

Mike, Olly, Gary and I got very cozy on a ledge, 1st pitch of First Pinnacle Rib!

It just keeps coming!  About 350m of Grade 3 scrambling

 

We chose to descend down the North Ridge (1). Where we practiced some roped lowers and stacked abseils.

On the Cannon Stone, Tryfan North Ridge.

Day 2: I think Rocio headed up the Seniors Direct Route, then Cneifion Arete.  While my team went up Idwal Buttress (2) and the Continuation Route (2), then I let them practice their lowers, short-roping and descent down the Idwal slabs exit gully.

Gary leading off, the photo of the day. Llyn Idwal in behind

Had to walk past this guy on the approach to the route. #scary

Olly rigging a 2 point belay, equalised, and running an italian hitch

Straddling the arete ‘sur cheval’

Cwm Idwal, North Wales

 

 

Mont Blanc Preparation Course

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a company that run Mont Blanc trips out of Chamonix.  They generally run a 7 day alpine climbing introduction, which ends in the summiting of Mont Blanc.  One of their potential clients was unsure whether he was fit enough and skilled enough to make the most of the trip in late August or whether to wait a year and put some more time in.  I agreed to take him out and assess his skills and fitness against that required to climb a 4000m European peak, on the basis and experience I have from this Alpine Climbing Course.

After a few phone calls to Geoff, to organise kit and accommodation, we met up in the Bryn Trych the night before to plan a big day out.  As Geoff had not visited Snowdonia before, I wanted to link up a big day involving Llechog or Clogwyn y Person Arete to try and get a summit of Snowdon involved, maybe with Lliwedd etc.  As hard as I tried I couldn’t think of anything on the Snowdon Massif that could compete with a scrambling day in the Glyderau.  (Let me know if you can think of anything)

Nor Nor Buttress grade 2/3, East Face Tryfan

So we met 8.45 in the Siabod Cafe for a quick panad, before embarking on the day.  Starting from Gwern Gof ….. (the one below Tryfan) … we smashed it up to the Heather Terrace on the East Face in about 45 minutes.  Geoff keen to show his fitness, and me keen not to lag behind!  But it showed it’s toll when Geoff ran out of water before we started the first scramble…!  Nor Nor Buttress variant.

I led each pitch with a focus on fast movement and efficiency rather than education of the rope systems I was using.  With a 50m rope, I body coiled all but about 12m, and made short fast pitches mixed with short roping the less serious sections.  We reached the top junction with the North Ridge at about 11 am.  Went over Tryfan summit, then to the south summit, and down along to the start of Bristly Ridge.

I wanted to find the most challenging route up the ridge, so stayed true to the line straight up and found some very challenging steps.  More than grade 1 for sure.

Steep sustained gully up Bristly Ridge to Glyder Fach

We topped out from the ridge as the clouds were rolling up and over the plateau of Glyder Fach.  It was like arriving at a 1970’s film set of the Moon landing with a trigger happy dry ice operator.

The Moon, I’m mean Glyder Fach

With a quick and irresistible photo on the Cantilever Stone:

Geology Rocks dude!

We then headed with very little visibility over the top of Glyder Fawr, which is a shame because the views of the Carneddau and Snowdon hills are utterly stunning.  Down the horror show scree slope towards Y Garn, then into Cwm Idwal.

We hit the Idwal cafe for an ice cream at about 4.30pm, a lot of terrain covered and the aim of the course (a bit of rope work and generally walking a long way over mountains fast) was accomplished.

Thanks Geoff for the wonderful day out and great chat along the way.  Don’t go back to work too soon, there are many adventures awaiting you.  Good luck on Monte Bianco. T