UKH

For all your North Wales winter conditions reports and questions.

To get the ball rolling much earlier than many of us would have expected, I climbed Crib Lem (II 2) today. A splendid, virtually alpine day with the Carnedds with snow from about 450 mtrs upward. The snow was knee deep in patches from the traverse in to the ridge and up. Plenty of hoar on the rocks and turf was well frozen except where deeply buried. I had only taken one axe with me which was fine, but my other hand would have got a lot less cold if I had taken a second one! I don't know, but Eastern Arete (II/III) on Ysgolion Duon looked like it would have been quite good today - nice and white and I don't suppose the turf there would have been much different from on Crib Lem.

Fingers crossed for some more days like this in the months to come!

Sounds like you had a great day! Here to hoping for more of the same (as well as some neve and ice) for the next few months!!

So early in the season.

Are there any pictures to confirm this ...?

Why weren’t you on Snowdon? Central Trinity (II 2) has been done! 😉

Interesting day on Tryfan yesterday: made the most of the sun and scrambled Bastow Buttress taking the hardest line possible on dry, warm rock. But the North Ridge was a different prospect altogether, a thin layer of ice on the rock offered little purchase (crampons would have helped but stayed in my pack) and weird snow conditions; thin but compacted, again pretty slippy. Conditions improved once past North Gully though.

Not a breath of wind all day, t-shirt for Bastow, brilliant day out.

Nice one......an optimistic thread! 

Ah shucks. You got me. I made it all up. 

See if this link works https://www.facebook.com/groups/540900876068651/permalink/1404896023002461/

Although if the chap on FB who seemed to have been in the gully did go up, I note he hasn't logged it on UKC - perhaps sensibly!

I was left wondering by his lack of response if it was a wind up..

From what people here seem to say do ya think I'm alright going scrambling in tryfan and y Gribin on Snowdon next week with good boots, microspikes and my humility to turn back if conditions are too bad?

Microspores?

Microspikes
I do indeed regret typing messages one handed

Perhaps you're getting a little too excited about the winter prospects next week?

Lolz. Now back to Welsh winter conditions please folks. Saw pictures of Crib Lem today and most of the snow had gone. I guess there might be some more consolidated snow in gullies now if it survived...

Nice one. Eastern Arete is mostly made out of bilberry bushes so you definitely want it to be frozen. Crib Lem is a much better scramble, at least in summer. 

Has anyone been on the horseshoe or tryfan today? I am attempting the Welsh 3000 over the weekend and don't know wether to take crampons and axe or not.

Yes, take them

Are you following the relevant Facebook groups? There have been pictures from the top of Snowdon, the Glyders and Carnedd group in the last two days. Snow up high seems to be the theme, but only really high, so the top of Tryfan looked snow free today.

Apparently Cardiff is in

Fair enough. What you're saying is that we shouldn't bother with this thread you started about winter conditions round this end for all our North Wales winter conditions reports and questions and just stick to Facebook groups instead?

I'm all for having both.

Nope, but I do find the level of traffic on the Facebook groups does mean you get more ground reports than I remember there ever being on UKC. Mainly because its people out walking, many more than climbing, and they might not even realise they are showing climbing conditions in their photos but they do. 

Anyway, you were asking if anyone had been out in the last couple of days so I thought you would be interested in those photos. This is probably the most active group if you're not already a member. https://www.facebook.com/groups/345833125602252/