Over recent years I seem to have managed to slot one snowy excursion in before Christmas each December, and I kept up the habit last weekend with a blitzkrieg to Snowdonia.

I met James near Chester at 6am on Sunday, and we set off west. Uncharacteristically, he said he wasn’t up for anything particularly spicy, so my planned objective of the grade II version of Y Gribin was shelved in favour of a lap of the Carneddau. The snow line was just below the entrance to Cwm Fynnon Lloer, and the westerly winds meant we were slogging through some pretty big accumulations on lee slopes as we approached the east ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen. I was hoping that the scrambly step would be nice and icy, but alas we had no excuse to don crampons, requiring only a walking axe to gain some purchase in the deep powder as spindrift sloughed down around us.

As we gained height the gullies dropping away on our right looked to contain only very loose powder and protruding rocks; not fun! Towards the top of the ridge James revealed that he was carrying a niggling leg injury, so we broke out the map and considered our options. Descent down the south-west ridge seemed the sensible course of action and we strode onwards to the top.

We’d been in the cloud for a while, so took a bearing from the summit to the path running along the top of Braich Ty Du face. Mother nature served us an ace at this point, delivering a proper whiteout in our first winter trip of the year.

Nonetheless, we carried out some exemplary ‘leapfrogging’ to ensure that we kept on the correct bearing, until a large bubble was noticed in my compass. We cheerily extracted the spare compass from James’ sack, only to find that it too had developed a not insignificant bubble. Persevering with my compass, we eventually popped out exactly where anticipated (but not before stopping for a cup of tea and a sandwich). Descending out of the cloud, we decided to break south and meet the path which skirts Llyn Ogwen, to avoid doing a longer lap of the lake along the road. Crossing the large boulder field turned out to be a rather arduous affair and the cause of much blaspheming, but we were soon back at the car.

With everything south of the highlands looking set to melt between now and Christmas, it was nice to get out into the white stuff for the first time this season. Here’s hoping for a good Welsh Winter!