Today was the last day of this cold snap and I continued to make the most of it by having another day of holiday. We started the day and headed to Craig y Llyn hoping to manage a few routes in the day and expecting it to be in condition given the length of cold weather we have had. As we arrived in the car park the sun was just beginning to appear over the trees and made for a beautiful landscape with crystal clear blue skies. After the obligatory pre climb faff we started the walk in and quickly realised that we were the first to walk along the “path” since the snow, although we were swimming again rather than walking. It was very hard work and most of the time we were up to our knees, we both ended up waist deep multiple times but eventually we arrived at the top of Central Icefall, our first climb of the day. As we were kitting up I was a bit concerned about the lack of ice and upon starting the abseil I looked around at the cliff and realised that the ice that. Read the full article…

After the success of Sunday’s trip to Torpantu and with a thaw arriving on Friday I booked two days off work to get out ice climbing in the Beacons again as it is just too much of a good chance to miss! Today I headed out with my housemate, Rhys, and a uni friend, Zack, they are both new to water ice climbing so after getting permission from the CCW we headed to Craig Cerrig-gleisiad to climb Waterfall Gully a grade II/III climb. The walk in to the bottom was quick and easy where we geared up and left our bags, this was a severe contrast to the ascent up to the gully which was more of a swim than a walk up knee deep unconsolidated snow. After what felt like ages we arrived at the bottom of the ice pitch and it looked great and was certainly in grade III condition. It was a fun climb but it was unfortunately very short and after the ice there was more swimming up to the top. We descended down Central Gully to head to Miners gully but there was nice ice so we. Read the full article…

I have just got back from a brilliant day ice climbing at Torpantau Falls in the Brecon Beacons. The waterfalls are located on the east side of Gwaun Cerrig LLwydion and are accessed by a road which passes alongside the Talybont reservoir and then goes steeply up the hillside. This road was “interesting” after the snow on Friday and I am very glad we took snow chains as we would have not got up without them.We started the walk with my housemates but left them soon to traverse around the side of the escarpment to the waterfall. This took around 45 mins and involved spending most of it in knee deep snow, however as the snow was a fine powder it was not hard going! As we were walking around we had no idea of what the condition the ice on the fall would be in, however as we traversed around and could see up the gully it was clear there was ice all the way up, if a bit thin at the start. We roped up at the very bottom ice fall however this was largely pointless as any. Read the full article…