Our annual Christmas gathering in Snowdonia was yet again another fantastic club trip. Going into the weekend we had a really cold spell with temperatures down to -6 on the drive over, and excitement at winter conditions for the weekend ahead.
Mark and Gary travelled down the day before to lay out a course and to capture various targets for everyone to locate, leaving the route up to individuals to decide. They got to enjoy beautiful crisp clear blue skies for the day.
A clear frosty start in the valleys soon led to cloud cover at around 500m with some snow flurries, and then from around 750m we had proper decent winter conditions and heavy snow. Most of us followed the route anti-clockwise starting at Moel Eilio before joining the Snowdon Ranger path up Snowdon but not before a quick detour to Llyn Ffynnon-y-gwas reservoir for another checkpoint. The summit of Snowdon was absolutely freezing at around -10 with the wind chill so just time for a hot drink before descending down the Llanberis path to bag a couple more checkpoints along the way then back to the accommodation for a fantastic 3 bird roast Christmas dinner.
Sunday was a mix of people doing their own thing, but Andy and Matt decided to do Crib Goch on the Sunday in full on winter conditions and it was fantastic with fresh powder and little to no ice. Matt even did it without wearing crampons although on one of the pinnacles he did need the assistance of the ice axe as a makeshift step up.
Although we got to enjoy fresh snow, it was a rather different affair for those who decided to stay lower after the previous days exertions. The cold snap was on the way out so the warmer conditions meant only one thing…rain!
