Mother Duck's Final Bow Out

Well it's been a while since I got out and did anything adventurous or even remotely interesting, it has mostly been work and university assignments however I made sure that I was out this weekend on the Uclan Mountaineering Club's trip to Wales. For the most part because it is the last one I am able to go on due to my imminent departure from university life and entrance into the real world. Which for me means a few months working with kids on a centre doing some really fun, awesome activities before graduating and spending a month in Malawi so overall not a bad introduction to adult life!

Anyways back to the trip, we were camping this week in the Ogwen Valley with the hopes of conquering things like Tryfan and Little Tryfan however the forecast wasn't quite on our side so we had a soggy first night on the Friday, cooking in the minibus and playing cards until we all escaped to our tents. Never fear the morning brought promise of sun for the day. I got out of my tent and into the fresh morning air to find the sun peaking it's way over the hills shedding light on the fine dusting of snow that had fallen in the night along the tops of the mountains. It reminded me of when you have a cake in the oven too hot and it comes out with the big peak in the middle so you sprinkle icing sugar on it to make it look better, is that giving you a clear enough picture. For clarity there were big brown mountains covered in snow.

We drove off to meet Bear at Tremadog as prearranged and seemed to leave the nice weather behind as it got very wet the nearer we got, even sleeting. So a new plan was hatched, we waited until noon for it to blow over and headed to a little fast drying crag nearish Tremadog next to the coast. Thats the best description you're going to get as I didn't catch the name or even actually remember it, sorry!

So a few routes were set up and the group got their first taste of Welsh rock for the weekend, the weather was fantastic it had completely cleared up and we were basking in the sunshine overlooking the gorgeous coastline. Overall pretty idyllic. So that was our first days climbing some pretty nice routes, nice people and nice weather. Back at the campsite it was dinner time!!!

Afterwards we went on a little jaunt up to little Tryfan which for anyone unaware it is basically a huge rocky mound next to Tryfan one of the most awesome looking mountain in Wales. We all wandered up and soaked up the dusk view before back down with the sun and into our chilly tents for the last night. When I say chilly I mean chilly, in the morning the tents were covered in a thin layer of ice!

Up and at em we were and quite proud I was of everyone's efficiency save a few unnamed individuals but we split from camp really early and even beat Bear to the layby. I remember the name of the place we went to on Sunday and it was... was erm.... Moel Hebog!! A pretty extensive crag in the same area as the Saturday and the weather once again pulled out the stops and gave us a great day. There were some cracking routes set up and we split into little teams to try them all. My cohort blasted through them and we even discovered a crows nest right on the route of the tricky climb which we promptly took down again after getting cawed at by the parents for being around. We started scrambling back through the bracken and brambles and I was collared to second Ben so we went and did a Severe which ended up being quite interesting. Then it was onto de-rigging the set ups and ambling back down the crag to the minibus to start the long sucky drive back north which involved lots of snacking, singing and feeding the driver like a baby bird.

       

It was nice to be on a club trip again and helping people experience the outdoors in a positive social way, it was also nice to have a co-pilot in coordinating the masses, go Cora and Ben! However as I've said it the last club trip I'll be on but I will keep going on adventures and causing havoc in some part of the world, keep your fingers crossed for the Malawi posts they will be good. The blonde takes Africa by storm! And with the promise of further future ramblings I bid thee adieu!