Rockfax Description
An amazing ridge with maximum excitement only spoilt by a rather long and winding approach. The upper section is best saved for a clear day since it is very difficult to find in poor visibility. The scrambling is pretty sustained and a rope is recommended as there is some loose rock and the climbing is exposed. Complete Pinnacle Ridge. Then go halfway up a heathery gully. Traverse left to the ridge and stomp up the heather to where it eases. A short easier section of scree leads to a path traversing left. Follow this briefly and then go back up and right until you can see a way across into a bay below a short buttress. Go left of buttress and back right above it via a grassy ridge. Trend down and right towards the start of another prickly ridge.
1) Scramble up the ridge over some spines. As this turns into a more defined ridge the difficulty increases.
2) At a difficult section, go up and over the ridge on the right into a bay with a chaos of boulders. Then carry along the ridge to a short triangular wall that blocks the way.
3) The right arete of this is easiest and care is needed to protect the second when you head along the ridge to a much more formidable impasse.
4) On the left is a ramp with a very long spike, which provides a good belay and the way upwards onto an open slab that is followed to another tower that blocks the way.
5) Go right around the tower - lower is better - to a tight gap in the ridge. Pass through this and belay on a slab below a wall.
6) The crux wall is technical and sustained. Climb it along a slight left-trending line to its top.
7) The sharp ridge continues briefly, but all to soon turns into a heathery rib on the flanks of Pen yr Ole Wen. Join the main Southwest Ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen at its end.
Descent - Go up or down the Southwest Ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen. You can also descend the East Ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen and then walk back along the shores of Llyn Ogwen to the car. © Rockfax

UKC Logbook Description
Start from top of Pinnacle Ridge. Looking up, Porcupine Ridge is the left of two buttresses in front of the summit when looking up to the skyline. From the starting point, ascend the steep, wet gully on the left of the large Buttress above. Continue past some smaller, mossy, heathery lumps to the cleaner rock ridges above. The route begins in the middle of the first few "spines", and gains the broken triangular face.

The full route description can be found in Steve Ashton's revised 2017 scrambling guide as "Route 2 Braich Tŷ Du Face".

Ticklists

Snowdonia Mountain Walks and Scrambles - Mark Reeves , British 3 Star Scrambles

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