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 28 March 2011

Still not climbing, but having a great 'summer' day in the mountains

I am still not able to climb due to a shoulder injury, but there is still plenty of great times to be had on foot in the mountains. Today Davey & I headed into the Carneddau for a mountain walk comprising of Pen yr Ole Wen 978 m (3,209 ft), Carnedd Daffyd 1,045 m (3,428 ft) and Carnedd Llewellyn 1,064 m (3,491 ft).
I was in shorts & t-shirt all day & managed to get sunburnt in MARCH!!
A thoroughly enjoyable day. Still can't wait to get climbing again though.

Friday 25 March 2011

Walking in the Clwyds

I have a physio assessment on my constantly dislocating right shoulder this afternoon, but managed to grab a couple of hours walking up in the Clwyds this morning. Couldn't resist due to the gorgeous early spring weather we are having.
Right, off to the hospital now... see if they'll let me go climbing on Monday.

Monday 21 March 2011

'Conquering Hero'

Today I have been out riding in the Llantysilio Mountains near Llangollen. I decided to do the 'Conquering Hero' ride as described in NE Wales Bikefax guidebook. The ride starts from the 14th century Welsh drover's watering hole 'The Sun Inn' and in part follows ancient drover's routes through the hills.
It is only 13.7km long but has a respectable height gain of over 600m. To be honest I found this route a real slog, one of those rides which only ever seems to go uphill and never down! Personally I think it would be better done in reverse.

Friday 18 March 2011

Mountain bike heaven





Back biking on the Clwydian range today (friday). A stunning spring day & 23km covered on dryish singletrack & fireroads.
Time to venture a bit further afield next week methinks though.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

The Beast of Cilcain

Todays plan was to head down to the Berwyn Mountains with the bike to do longer variation of 'The Wayfarer' route. However having had a heavy cold for the last few days I decided against the 40km+ & approx 1200om height gain of that plan, and instead chucked the bike on the car & headed towards the Clwyds to do a quick lap of 'The Beast of Cilcain' which is a great fun blast. Today it was very very muddy which resulted in me having an 'over the bars' experience near the stream crossing! Doh.

Monday 14 March 2011

MTBing in the Moel Famau area

Today (Mon) I had a good couple of hours riding on & around Moel Famau. It felt good to be back on the singletrack up there which I know very well. The problem with the Clwydian Range & Moel Famau in particular is legal access to riding. Many of the footpaths & tracks are designated no go areas for MTBs, and in a lot of instances that makes sense. However with a bit of discretion & knowledge of the local hills there is plenty of fun to be had. All legally of course! ;-)

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Update

Still nothing wintery going on in Snowdonia. There is a small amount of snow forecast over the weekend along with some very low temps on high ground, but nothing to get too excited about.
Due to a shoulder injury I am just concentrating on MTBing & some mountain walking for the time being, in the hope that my shoulder will improve enough for a trip to Scotland in April for some winter climbing.