Ty Powdwr Bank Holiday fun time weekend (incl. Alpine training)

A great turnout for some bank holiday fun based at the club hut for a mixture of mountain activities.

 

Most people arrived Friday evening after negotiating the bank holiday traffic, but Andy S, Jess P and Lewis managing an early skive from work to climb on Holyhead Mountain during the day.

 

Come Saturday morning the weather wasn’t looking great with low cloud and much mizzle. Undeterred, a group headed out to Llanberis pass to do some scrambling in head to toe Gore-Tex whilst the more deterred of the group had a very leisurely breakfast then opting to go cragging at Craig Y Tonnau…once the rock dried.

 

The meet was combined with some alpine themed training days with a couple of IFMGA mountain guides which was organised by Jared. Sunday was the first of these days and thankfully the weather was looking more ‘summer alpine’ than ‘summer Wales’ and the Sunday mountain skills group headed over to the Ogwen Valley rather early to take advantage of the forecast (and to also ensure a parking spot!). Jess B took the alpine theme very seriously and opted for an alpine start from Manchester to get to Wales on time. Skills included rope work, moving together efficiently over varying terrain and taking coils with everyone (from budding alpinists to the more seasoned alpinists of the club) getting a lot from the day.

 

A separate party headed over to Caidar Idris to climb the classic Table Direct onto Cyfrwy Arete, mostly sticking to the alpine theme of moving together, with some mountain queuing thrown in for good measure. After bagging the summit the group headed back down, to the pub.

 

Bank Holiday Monday was day 2 of the alpine skills course and this meant some crevasse rescue training on the well known Dinorwig Glacier. The group split into 2 groups, and the guides demonstrated how to set up a rescue pully system. It was then up to us, working in pairs, to re-create and rescue your fallen partner from the crevasses of the Dinorwig Glacier. This of course added comedy value to the day as people were dragged across the grass to safety. Co-ordination skills were also put to the test when learning how to prussic out of a crevasse, another moment of comedy value.

Those not on day 2 of alpine skills made the most of some dry rock and went climbing on the slate, or heading into the hills for a nice big walk.

 

All in all, a very successful long weekend.

Jessica Pealing