Will I ever tire of Cwm Idwal? No. No I will not.

Our Saturday started there after a breakfast rendezvous at Siabod Cafe (seriously, who eats chips for breakfast?). We walked in under a cloudless sky past a very busy Idwal slabs, reaching the bottom of North-West Face Route very quickly. At this point I confided to my erstwhile partners, Gary and Jamie, that I wouldn’t be joining them on the Grade 2 scramble from the Steve Ashton Book of Death, as I need to protect my tweaked Achilles for a mountain marathon the following weekend. They took the news well (almost too well?), and I wandered up to meet them atop Seniors’ Ridge.

They despatched the route in under an hour, and we luncheoned with a lovely view down the Nant Ffrancon. After a bit of indecision, we plumped for a continuation to the summit of Glyder Fawr, and a descent via Castell y Gwynt and Glyder Fach.

It was at this point that Gary discovered the Dramatic setting on his camera, and the day suddenly looked a lot more gritty and hardcore than perhaps it actually was. Although I probably shouldn’t admit that!

After the obligatory Cantilever photo we descended past Llyn Bochlwyd and I managed to persuade Gary that another swim was in order, since it went so well last time.

Exercise complete, we retired to the van/tent for the evening, enjoying the last of the day’s copious sunshine and thanking various deities that we weren’t doing a 24-hour triathlon like some poor souls we saw crawling up Nant Gwynant all evening.

Unfortunately Sunday didn’t continue the run of good weather, and we had to don full waterproofs before even reaching the top of Y Garn at the start of the Nantlle Ridge. Fortunately we are hardy mountain souls, and were fuelled by another cafe breakfast, so we carried on to Trum y Ddysgl before calling it a day and returning through the forest to finish another satisfying weekend.