Yesterday's claggy weather was gone and with Snowdonia bathed in sunshine we unwisely chose to hide in the shade on Glyder Fach. Direct Route took up most of the day, shivering and slithering up the final steep chimney, before returning to the bottom to balance up the runout Alpha.
A great day out with Becky, which began with a rainy lap of Tryfan, before we escaped to the Llanberis Pass for some lower crags. We began on Nea which has a superb 3rd pitch, followed by Diagonal on Dinas Mot which had a pair of excellent first pitches, although we sadly abb'd off after that with darkness impending.
Becky and I were delayed getting here, first by all of the red wine we drank on Saturday night, and secondly by the huge signs directly us to the "Hedge Puzzle" on our way there. Consequently we only managed a couple of routes with the steep limestone walls providing a good contrast to the huge runout slab of the previous weekend.
Ahead of our planned ski touring in April, myself and Steve booked onto a weekend course at Glenmore Lodge along with Becky and Pete. The snow conditions were perfect for learning about avalanche danger and I particularly enjoyed the large quantities of digging and science involved in the course. It was also my first time at Glenmore and the food, dorms and facilities were superb.
A fun week of piste skiing, jumps, boxes, steep moguls and a brief attempt at snowboarding towards the end.
With a relatively early 2:45am start, we made good time up the glaciers and rock finish to the summit of Dufourspitze (4634m) in around 7 hours. The descent route was much more exciting with some soloing of fixed ropes over the top of the Spanish and a few monster crevasses to contend with.
