Mountain Journeys

Snowdonia rock & sun: 6th – 9th September 2014

It was time for a few days away with Kate & Don.

After an overnight stop in Manchester we arrived in Nant Peris, full of ideas and energy.

We began at a small crag called 'Craig Caseg Fraith Isaf (Lower Speckled Mare Crag) in the Ogwen valley. All single pitch routes and mostly rather steep.
I can't understand why we hadn't already been here. It's minutes from the road, has a lovely outlook, and the rock quality is excellent. The local farmer did mention Plas y Brenin are here almost daily - maybe that's why!

We climbed 5 routes here from Severe - HVS 5b. I took 2 small falls which i'm quite proud of as falling isn't my thing! The gear was excellent and the rock steep, so a fall here would be as good as it gets. Still got up the route too.

After tea & cakes back at Tyn Lon, we headed back out up the Llanberis Pass to climb Nea on Clogwyn y Grochan.
Nea is a 'Classic Rock' route and one we'd previously tried to do (but the queue was too long!) so I was really keen.
The spell of dry weather also meant the initial section wasn't too wet. Still wet enough to have me loose confidence in my feet. The 1st pitch was a challenge, the 2nd pitch a breeze. The remaining sections I don't know because time was running away with us so we abseiled off as we prefer to finish our climbing in the daylight!

On Monday we drove to Tremadoc and walked up to Pant Ifan. This was my first time on Pant Ifan. Won't be ruching back there either.
After a lot of looking around we found the letters PMP scratched into the rock. The route we were wanting to climb was Poor Man's Peuterey (or PMP) so we deduced the climb would start here. How wrong we were!!!!
Without any mention of this in the new guidebook, this is in fact the start of a completely different route, quite unbelievable for this to be omitted from the otherwise excellent guidebook to the crag.

So after much faff, a retreat was made from this climb, and more searching until we found the start of PMP proper.
At the top of pitch 2 I was still unsure we were on the correct route due to the vagueness of descriptions. But no matter, the climbing had been fun and challenging so far. Pitch 3 was an absolute cracker, every move a delight, the exposure magnificent and the rock immaculate, oh why do these pitches have to end.

On Monday we stayed in the Llanberis Pass and climbed Flying Buttress on Dinas Cromlech.
It had been years since either of us had climbed this route and we had both forgotten what a treat it is. Great positions and a crux right at the top, perfect. Care needed for the steep descent gully though.

It's been lovely to get away for a break, it makes us realise how amazing the Lake District really is. Glad to be home.

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