Ben kindly invited me, Greg and Jonny to a Rucksack Club meet at Nant Peris last weekend. The aim was to cover the fifteen Welsh 3000ft peaks over two days. In conversation on Friday night it was clear how much the guys in the club love blogs and would be looking forward to this post, so I thought I’d better write it up quickly!

I hadn’t realised it was such an organised event, but in total thirteen of us arrived at Beudy Mawr on Friday evening and subsequently set off from Abergwyngregyn at 07:20 on Saturday morning. We all walked up to the summit of Foel Fras together, hitting both the cloud and the snow level in the process. Greg and I started running at this point, along with new acquaintances Rob and Kate.

The snow was wet and often quite deep, so we made moderately slow progress over the bulk of the Carneddau. The first half of the day consisted of half walking and half running along bearings with no visibility, which is always good for sharpening the senses.

Snow conditions improved along the top of Ysgolion Duon and Carnedd Dafydd, and the descent from Pen yr Ole Wen was slippery but fairly quick. As we dropped out of the cloud, Rob and Kate went off to Cwm Idwal while Greg and I pondered the best way up Tryfan.

We decided on Heather Terrace, which proved do-able but decidedly exciting where some of the steep gullies cut into the snowy path. The fun bit really started at the bwlch between the main summit and the far south. The snow was just soft enough to kick up in fell shoes, and gave great sport to the summit. As we approached Adam and Eve, a view of the main Glyderau opened up behind us, highlighting the way ahead. We soon re-traced our steps and started the slog up the screes to the east of Bristly Ridge.

Emerging onto the Glyder plateau at about 15:00, we pushed hard to make the most of the remaining daylight. Visibility was good by this point, meaning navigation between Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr was the easiest of the day. At the summit of Glyder Fawr we once again were enveloped in grey, and dropped quickly to Llyn y Cŵn (our running/skidding/sliding/falling technique being described as “elegant stumbling” by one person we passed!).

We unexpectedly came across Gareth at the lake, who was on his way back to the hut and gave us a status update on everyone else’s progress. Y Garn had obviously been extended since last time Greg and I ran up there, because it took an age to slog up to the summit. Fed up of the niceties of stopping for photos by now, we ran straight across the summit  and down towards Foel Goch. Complacency set in as we approached the final peak of the day with only the scrambly section of Bwlch y Marchlyn left to negotiate, and we soon found ourselves on a steep slope with no path. A quick and efficient correction raised our spirits again, and we broke out the headtorches on the final climb up the rocky ridge of Elidir.

No-one had been up the path I intended to use for descent, so it was invisible under the snow cover and darkness. Once again we found ourselves plodding along a bearing, which worked out quite well when a fence with a stile appeared out of the darkness. With the last of the navigation complete, and the lights of Nant Peris appearing through the cloud, we followed the path to the village and a pot of tea waiting in the hut. Everyone else had a decent day out too, with lots of ground getting covered (and rumours of sunshine somewhere near Carnedd Dafydd – we saw very little of it!). A fantastic dinner in good company finished the day off rather nicely.

The plan for Sunday was to complete the final three peaks, but aching limbs and pouring rain (and a boring work deadline) meant that I scarpered home early instead. The final tally for Saturday was 21 miles and 2900m of ascent over 12 hours, and all organised by a thoroughly nice bunch of people. An excellent trip.