Arthur and I hadn’t been out to the mountains for a while.  We had been on a family (weekend) trip to Scotland earlier in the summer which hadn’t gone exactly to plan (travel sickness, burst tire, biting insects etc)!  I had made it the top of Ben Nevis in sweltering heat having boldly said, “I’ll do it for all of us”.   It was cramped and emotional but looking back, fun.  (I think most of us thought it was more fun with hindsight!)

 

 

So here we were – Arthur and I, parked below Tryfan.  Normal play had resumed and we were excited.  Having slept the night in the car we hiked the short distance to the base of Pen yr Ole Wen.  The weather was variable – mostly rainy but when the sun did come out the light was spectacular.

We took the direct route up the southern ridge.  It was hard on the legs from the outset and pretty quickly we had hands on rock.  Arthur led the route most of the way – confident but careful.  We chatted and I reminded him of our ‘one rule’ – safety first.  When it rained we found shelter under rocks and waited for the showers to pass.  It felt so good to be back out on the mountains.

As we progressed I took time to point out the various places we had been previously – the ‘Devil’s Kitchen’ being one of the most obvious features across the valley and of course Tryfan!!

We settled into a good rhythm on the mountain.  We stopped occasionally to eat sweets and drink lucozade.  I trusted Arthur to pick the lines of approach which he did with skill and intuition.  The scenery was amazing – sometimes I thought it looked like scenery from an old fashioned railway model.

We saw a few people on the climb but not as many as I thought we would.  One guy we talked to said he was feeling unsure of what to do; he didn’t want to go up but wasn’t sure how to get down.  He said that when he saw Arthur he felt more determined he could make it (even though he didn’t like heights).  It actually took us quite a long time to reach the top.  We stopped briefly and then carried on to our next objective – Carnedd Dafydd.

The route became easier now.  The ridge-line was fairly flat, the weather had improved and we made swift progress.  Arthur was always putting in the extra effort to explore all the features such as the cairns (which are huge and I believe fairly ancient).  Before long we were at the top of Carnedd Dafydd and we were heading towards our third objective – Carnedd Llewelyn – but not before we took a few minutes to make a brew.

We hiked without any real urgency.  As we climbed higher on Carnedd Llewelyn the wind grew in strength.  The small summit shelter was quite comforting.  Arthur was really interested by the difference it made.  He kept poking his head over the top of the shelter like a meerkat to be blasted by by the wind!  We spoke to a few people at the top and then stared to make our way down.

The route off the mountain was straightforward although there were a few tricky sections which required concentration.  Arthur said he’d like to go back in the snow and I agreed that would be a rewarding undertaking!

 

Our original intention had been to camp on the mountain but I was acutely aware of a storm coming in that night.  There didn’t seem to be any value in getting all our kit soaked when we were just a few km’s from the car.  We agreed to push on.  I’m still not sure where Arthur got the energy from but we jogged off the mountain and were back at the car about 12 hours after we set off.  We had fish and chips for dinner in a local town and then returned to the lay-by at the foot of Tryfan to spend another night.  The wind had dropped and a great number of midge had appeared.  They wasted no time in following the light into the car!  Arthur quite diligently squashed them on the roof with his finger!  Then we fell asleep – exhausted.  That night the storm hit and we were both glad we had made the effort to get in for the night.