Its A Gully Ayit - Thurs 28th March

After the pre Easter snow storm we were determined to take some days out on the hill, after a series of ‘Mondays bad, can’t do Wed, but can do...’ texts. We settled on 3 of us managing to get the Thurs 28^th before Easter. The real problem was actually getting to North Wales. Over the weekend of 23/24^th the A5 was blocked with snow at Ogwen. Llangollen remained closed until the Mon/Tues. Not wanting to add to the emergency services statistic it did seem prudent to wait until later in the week, time for the snow to consolidate a tad and the possibilities of further improvements in the weather.

Overnight feedback from the ‘Winter Condition’ thread on the UKC forum, still had Llanberis pass closed and chocked full of snow until the Thursday morning. Weaving thru the collateral in Llangollen, some of the snow is banked so high its going to take weeks to pool.

 8am sat in the cafe in Capel, mmmm decisions, decisions. If we plum for something like Sergeants/PF in the pass, then we could lose an hour or two just trying to make it there, and probably not be able to park by the Cromlech anyway. Understandably Andy doesn’t fancy having his CMAX reshaped by a JCB. Hell... it’s got to be one of the gullies in Y Garn again then.

Met Office and MWIS had suggested that there was a potential avalanche risk and a chance of windslab.

One more time then, let’s go for A then B then C, see how the day goes. The road down to Ogwen cottage is not too bad; a couple of the lay-bys have been partially cleared. Not many folks here yet today but had we left it 10min later then no space. Chugging up to Cwn Clyd we meet a couple of chaps on their way down. They were a bit concerned about the wind slab so backed off any gullies. We press on… ahh its not so bad. Good, no tracks, so nobody has been up this morning or maybe since the day before, always nice treading new snow even if it’s old ground.

 

Heading round the East rim of Llyn Clyd, the snow is blinding and its not even full sun yet. Some deep drifts on the approach to the gully and is heavy going, the stream is around here somewhere, ahh sh…yeah there it is, err chaps don’t step here ok. As the angle increases around 700m the snow firms up slightly. OK, well the conditions look ok at the moment, apart from a 25mm crust the stuffs pretty good underneath, no significant slab and this is almost a North facing gully so it should have stayed cold. It’s a grade 1 but we’re slightly cautious due the severity of the storm the weekend before so decide to rope up from here. Deej sets off, me in the middle, Andy on the end.

 

The first 100m gained are good and we get to the junction where A, B split. Looking back down the tracks it hard to believe were in North Wales, a pure White carpet below. After a brief look at the state of each route we go for A Gully. There is a bit of unstable slab and we need to cross it to get to the right hand wall of the gully. After another 20m, things aren’t looking so solid. Ok let’s go up the dividing spur of rock at last we can get some protection in. Sounds like a plan. Deej soon finds its pretty nasty unconsolidated powder. A Straight forward Grade 1 raised its game to a 2 which feels like a 3 to us. Over the next 50m or so of mixed ground, we put in 4!!! short, but highly entertaining pitches. A couple of good flakes provide bomber-ish belays but the foot placements are shite to say the least. Andy been hanging on his axes for a few min for balance and now his hands are cold, after bashing away the ice from around a rump of rock I recon I can get a reasonable foot stance to bring him up. “Oi Andy, your on belay, get goin mate”. A big chunk of rock that made my stance look good now decides it wants to potter off down the gully. “Andy, get your head dow…sorry mate” .

 

Deej is just some 6 or so metres tucked in above me, his last pitch will take him up over what cornice there maybe. Andy comes up to my previous stance and clips in. The winds picking up near the top and we loose the sun, brrr Need to give Deej enough rope to get him well clear of the cornice, so Andy bales out some more rope to me. Deej starts off, although the last 10m or so are the steepest, the ice is now hard front point heaven. I watch his poons disappear over the top. Brrrr, now for the cold wait as Deej sets up and axe anchor and bucket seat. A few tugs on the rope and I’m off up… wow nice stuff. It’s so good to top out into a blazing sun. Dam hard to tell how big the cornice is today, the snow near the edge is hard and deep so I go way back off the lip and set up a secondary anchor on some protruding rock. All good, Andy starts on up allowing Deej a chance to get some pics.

 

It’s taken longer than expected but everyone’s safe and we have had a great day. Although it’s a route know doubt been done before we decide to call it ‘Ayit Gully’.

We head down towards the Kitchen see if we can catch anyone on the Screen and the like. The wind and ice has whipped up some stunning architecture, we find few short pitches of ice to try out Deej’s mammoth Ice Screws, bloody hell no shifting these babies once their home.



In your dreams!!

Last but not least, Andy appears to have a habit of bumping into Sarah and Bella, this time on a late run round Idwal.