Its all about winter climbing then it warms up and its not, then it gets bloody freezing again and all of a sudden its back on and your ranting your VW north to get first dabs on that winter route, it’s a funny olde game.  So it was warm then i went walking in the Breacon Beacons and it was cold, very cold, then it snowed and i drove up there on a weekday to bag a quick route up the Pen-Y-Fan North Face.

Winter Climbing Pen-Y-Fan

The car park was covered in snow and the ground was bullet hard making for a good start to the day.  On the way up the Army boys were up there being punished by being made to hold there gun with no gloves on……..???? the air temp was about minus 10 and the wind was blowing 35mph easy, so to say there hands were nippy, sums it all up.

Descending from the summit and traversing below the North Face took us out of the wind but not the cloud which was down and covering our vision in a foggy haze.  We headed to what appeared from below, the biggest gully and the most central, which was good because we were trying to climb ‘Central Gully’ ** Grade 3 and being in the middle of the face made sense. We headed up the gully soloing and came to a couple of tricky steps that were nicely iced.

Icy Steps Pen-Y-Fan

It was a nice steady way up the face with a little extra kick as it steepens up for the head wall. This was it a nice leisurely winter route ready for the next but what next??

Jason on the North Face of Pen-Y-Fan

What next?? Well……………..myself and mate Henry had booked a trip to Morocco, flying into Agadir heading to the Anti-Atlas mountains for Monday and with conditions still good why not head to Snowdonia and grad a little something on the way over, after all that’s what winter climbing is all about, grabbing a little something when you can.

Winter Climbing North Wales

So we packed  a lot of stuff into my van and headed north.  We wanted something turfy, something exciting, something you stick your axe in and really krank, get scared, be brave, get scared again and then reach the top.  We agreed that this would be found at Glyder Fach in Snowdonia and we ploded slowly up to the face and made it there after 1.5 hours of left foot, right foot repeat.  The face was in the cloud and we made the most of the little flicks of rock that stuck out to get our bearings.  We choose ‘Dancing Queen’ in the end, at IV, 5 this seemed a good choice to get something funky in without fucking yourself up trying something when your not warmed up and your Jedi winter climbing powers aren’t fully powerful yet!!

“Dancing Queen” Glyder Fach

‘Dancing Queen’ was in great nick and the climbing flowed really well.  The picture above is me on the first pitch crux bulge and you had to pull which was nice. We did the route in 2 pitches as it made sense and there was a nice ledge at 35m.  The 2nd pitched started like this.

2nd Pitch “Dancing Queen”

It went up this great little turfy wall on blobs and then moved up grooves and bulges to a belay and abseil station that we added.  The route was great but must be climbed when fully frozen as it relays on frozen turf a lot.  I would advise two pitches rather then the guide books one as the route seemed to be around 70m and abseiled down in 2 pitches as well.  Great route and worth more then 1 star for sure.  The next day we were up at 3:45am to catch a flight to the desert and a great start to a trip.

Morocco Baby!!!