You win some, you lose some. I took a gamble last weekend with a trip to Snowdonia, and I definitely won.

After reports of good conditions the previous weekend, and exciting things being done throughout the week, I decided a lightning raid on North Wales was required in the hope of catching some early season snow. With everyone else busy due to financial / eco-warrior / christmas dinner commitments, this was to be a solo mission. Driving along the A55 at 06:00 on Saturday morning, the thermometer in the car read 9 degrees C, and my hopes of getting anything done were fading. I pulled in to Ogwen caff car park at 07:45; there were two cars already present, and I feel we all bonded as we sat there, looking gloomily past flailing windscreen wipers at the nearly-bare Glyderau. However, I hadn't driven all that way to go for a ramble, so I bunged the pointy things in my bag and ventured up to Cwm Cneifion anyway.

Climbers on Easy Route. You can see my footprints pretty much all the way up the route. Copyright Haydn Williams 2009.

Mercifully there was still some snow left! Despite a major thaw most other places, the north-facing headwall of the upper cwm had retained some gully snow that was still climable. At the end of last year I had a look at Easy Route (I), but found it full of slush. This time it was perfectly doable, so do it I did. It lives up to its name, serving as a nice start to the new season. The top section gets a bit steeper and more interesting, and I was up on the plateau pretty quickly. With my desired route for the day dealt with, I pondered the most interesting way down. Y Gribin was still plastered in snow and ice, and looked a bit dicey, so I opted for Senior's Ridge. Plans soon changed when I decided to traverse from Senior's back into the upper cwm, and have a nosey at Corner Gully (I/II).

Repeating Easy Route. Do steps count as cheating? Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

As I reached my initial start point, I met another bloke who had his eye on the same route. He went up first while I demolished a bacon sandwich, and I then followed him, taking a slightly different line at the top. Like Easy Route, I was surprised at the quality of the snow; despite a couple of soft patches it seemed I'd managed to get away with two routes. On the plateau once again, we went our separate ways and I plodded down Senior's Ridge. It seems my recent gym and running regime has paid dividends, because – full of enthusiasm – I went back again and repeated Corner Gully! Heading down Senior's Ridge for the third time that day, I promised myself just one more route. I'd been eyeing-up a nice looking line in the corner towards Tower Rib, which the guide book later informed me was the top end of Tower Slab (II/III). While doing Corner Gully for the second time, I'd noticed a few bits of rock thawing away from the cliff and descending at speed, so aborted that plan and repeated Easy Route instead. By this point there had been a lot of melting everywhere, and I figured four laps was probably enough! Being a little sick of Senior's Ridge by this point, I descended over Glyder Fawr and past Devil's Kitchen. Going under Idwal slabs I saw a party of three backing off Ordinary Route, which brought back fond memories of last year's MPS trip.

Too much stuff for one person? Drying kit in the 'van. Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

I spent the night in the caravan, drying things off and listening to the seventeen hours of non-stop rain which followed my descent from the Glyders. I had a leisurely start on Sunday, waiting for the rain to stop (which it did, eventually). Given a rather horrid forecast, gleefully summed up by Becs on the phone as "chilly, windy, soggy", I decided to head up Moel Siabod via Daear Ddu, the east ridge. I parked in Capel and walked the first bit to the top of the horrible tarmac track, at which point I started running. Despite a rather viscious but short-lived hailstorm, I made reasonable time to the ridge, which is a Grade 1 scramble. No matter how many times I do it, I just keep coming back to it; you can make it as easy or as hard as you like, and nowhere is it particularly scary. I had great fun picking an interesting line up the ridge, and then made it from the summit back to the car in just over half an hour. So, that was my first proper run over a mountain, and I think we can class it as a success.

Descending from Siabod - Capel, Llynau Mymbyr and the Carneddau in the background. Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

All in all, it seems I managed to wrestle a bit of snowy fun and a decent hill run from what could have been a very wet and generally dismal weekend. Roll on the rest of the season.

Tags: Climbing, Cwm Cneifion, Snow, Winter