North Wales - 14-15 June 2008
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Written by Vijay Kuve
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Our traditional mid summer meet in this ever popular hut deep in the mountains of North Wales was very nearly jeopardised by an unfortunate fuel transport strike. However, it turned out not as bad as thought to be, and once everybody was confident they would not be stranded in Wales, the meet got underway.
Saturday morning turned out to be sunny despite some pessimistic weather predictions. 8 of us were in a group who decided to take advantage of the sunny start to tackle the mountains and headed off from the hut. Claire and Adrian decided to go climbing.A brisk walk got us to the starting point of the circular walk at Pen y benglog. Admiring the views of the reservoir Llyn Ogwen, we started the ascent towards Yr Ole Wen. Up loomed the first big summit of the day, Pen yr Ole Wen. This ascent was soon accomplished and we sat down to have a breather. Clear blue skies meant superb views around.
We soon got going and reached Carnedd Fach, and then after a steep climb onto Carnedd Dafydd, it was time for lunch according to some, and so we refreshed ourselves with some much needed calories and food.
The walk continued with us walking towards the right of Carnedd Dafydd and then skirted Carnedd Llewelyn and climbed onto the summit of Yr Elen. A brief rest was had here before we headed towards Carnedd Llewelyn. This was the last major climb of the day on this circular walk, which was a bit of a relief. We were soon at the top of Llewelyn, and then a swift brisk walk got us to the top of Pen yr HelgDu.  Good views of Llugwy reservoir were had from here. Most of the party was now forming an opinion that we should be heading back, and so we did. Claire and Adrian, meanwhile, had gone climbing up the Cenotaph Corner and quite rightly seemed very pleased with the effort. We finished the day with copious amounts of curry and Cobra beer, courtesy of the local takeaway.
Sunday morning started very cloudy, putting to rest any ambitious plans for the day.
Derek went off climbing though, and the rest of us got going on a smaller walk. We parked near Capel Curig, and then with David leading the way, we scrambled to the top of Moel Siabod. The skies cleared up by then, and Ian showed me the view of almost all the Welsh 3000 mountains from there. We had lunch and headed back to the starting point, then back home.
Note by Claire Gooder on the climb they did on Sunday:
We had a perfect day on Sunday. The ominous grey clouds didn't produce any rain. We returned to the Llanberis Pass to do another classic climb " Cemetery Gates" on Dinas Cromlech. We were both well chuffed!!! We celebrated with a drink in the Brynn Turk (?) at Capel Curig before heading home. How pretty Wales looks in the sunshine!
Some pictures from this meet are in the gallery here.
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