It seems like an age ago, but was only last weekend. Before all the snow which is currently causing much consternation across the upper half of the UK, there was some decent weather. Greg, Arno, Rob and I salvaged an aborted trip to Glen Shiel by visiting north Wales instead for some running and climbing. After a leisurely start on Saturday we began our run with a bang, slogging up the steep ascent to the top of Y Garn on the Nantlle ridge.

From there, we traced a route southwards over a couple of other tops on the ridge, then down to the Princess Quarry and over Moel Lefn, Moel yr Ogof and Moel Hebog. After crossing Cwm Cyd and reaching the top of Moel Banog, Rob and Arno took the direct route back to Beddgelert whilst Greg and I pushed on over Cwm Bychan before dropping into the village and recovering with an ice cream.

We covered 20km and between 1500m and 1800m of ascent (depending on whether you believe my GPS or my OS-mapping software!). The height estimate seems a little high, given that I still felt pretty good at the end of the day (especially strange after my complete meltdown on the Edale Skyline the week before).

That evening I hopped on a Sherpa bus to go and pick the car up, and then took it for a spin. Dad had kindly continued my recent run of “borrowing nice cars for trips to Snowdonia”, and given me a Focus ST to play around with. Suffice to say it was pretty swift and actually turned out to be more fun than the Boxster.

Sunday started beautifully, with not a cloud in the sky as I dropped the others at Idwal for their walk up to Cneifion Arete. I parked further along the Ogwen valley and moved quickly up the north ridge of Tryfan (which is the obligatory Snowdonia route in blazing sunshine). My “easy day” got a little harder as I despatched Tryfan in just over an hour, and decided to continue onto Glyder Fach. I could see Greg and Arno on Cneifion Arete from the top of the upper cwm headwall, so carried on over Glyder Fawr to Llyn y Cwn.

Still with time to spare I pushed on over Y Garn, and got back to the car about five minutes before Rob, who’d walked up Senior’s Ridge and returned over Y Garn too. I just had time for a quick power nap before Greg and Arno returned from the escapades on Cneifion Arete, and we all trundled home tired but content.