The purpose of this blog is to report on winter climbing conditions in Snowdonia, to keep you lot who like nothing better than climbing ice, snow, frozen turf etc in ridiculously low temps informed!! As well as it being a record of some of my own winter climbing adventures. Feel free to email me any of your own conditions reports & photos you have & I will post them here. The more info on winter conditions the better! email:
andymountains@googlemail.com

Monday 10 January 2011

Cwm Cneifion report by Mike Nolan (Sun 9th)

Hey Andy
Thought I'd send over this conditions report. I hope it's useful.

Picture 1: Cwm Idwal from Sub Cneifion rib.

Nothing at all in Cwm Idwal, the only ice we could see was the top pitch of The Devils Appendix.

Picture 2: Clogwyn Du from the base of Tower Slabs.

3 or 4 teams on it at about 3:30. 3 people were on Clogwyn Left Hand, seemed to be hanging around on pitch 2 or 3 for a while, can't have been in too good condition, it was relatively warm, about +4 in the car park so I assume it was still pretty thin.

2 teams headed up hidden gully which looked great, snow was perfect, couldn't have been any more solid. Plenty of it in the gullies in Cwm Cneifion too!

Also, slightly unusual maybe, somebody was *rock climbing* up Travesty, couldn't see any tools anyway and it looked pretty bare so I only assume. Far too cold for that!

Picture 3: Tower Slabs

Slabs were in great condition. Although, alot of water falling at the bottom. Decent fat ice and vegetation was in good condition.

Had a quick look at Tower Gully which also had great solid snow. Didn't get to see the crux because it started going dark so I couldn't check the ice up there.

One more thing. On the approach up to Cwm Cneifion, shortly after the Sub Cneifion Rib, the path crosses 2 snow fields. I'd really advise having an axe ready at least for this bit as a slip would be pretty bad. Same goes for the approaches to the climbs in Cneifion. Crampons and axes should be put on as soon as you come into the bottom of the Cwm because the snow is difficult to get up without them. We saw one guy slide about 20 meters before he managed to arrest.


Hope there is some useful information you can use there. It was a great day and better conditions than I expected!

Mike

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