Cwm Idwal has put on weight over Christmas!

I headed up into Cwm Idwal today to see if all this I've heard about the ice there being amazing is true. And it was, everything there is super fat, including myself. I went up with my brother Ollie, he has not done a great deal of winter climbing, so we planed to do The Screen or South Gully or one of the classic 4's up there. They were all rammed full of people though so they were off the menu. And so much spindrift was coming down the South Gully area that we didn't fancy trying Grecian 2000 either, which was a potential. The Pipes looked great! And we were so close to going and getting on it, but Ollie psyched me out and we bailed. In he end we ended up on the Devils Drainpipe after about an hour of procrastination. It was nearly 2pm by this point!

The Sting, fat as ever! 

We saw Jon and Jim up there. They had been to the back of the kitchen, and started up it. But had to retreat just after leaving the ground as they were accumulating about an inch of snow a minute, and you couldn't look upwards because of it. Sounds horrific. So they did the curtain instead, which looked pretty good! There were at one point 9 climbers on the Appendix I think! And people on every other route up there.

The Drainpipe, IV/V 5 was great. We did it in one long pitch. Starting on steep ice, then into a series of narrow iced grooves, much steeper then I thought they were going to be. Good continuous climbing though.

The grim weather

Ollie on reaching the top said 'Your a prick, for making me come ice climbing, its like torture!'. It cracked me up. He had borderline hot aches all the way up the route it seems. But they didn't quite go over the edge, make him cry and then warm up again, he was just stuck with the pain. He's not going to winter climb with me again apparently. We'll see about that! 

By the time we had done that it was half 3 and the weather was so grim we didn't fancy another route. The combination of spindrift and strong gusts felt like a sandblaster to the face. And me not having checked the weather before setting out had not prepared for it, with the 'oh its only Cwm Idwal, if it gets grim we can easily retreat' attitude didn't bring a buff, goggles or much clothing. So I certainly had a miserable time of it. Getting blown over and falling into holes from other peoples feet that were covered by the spindrift.

The routes up there are in awesome nick at the moment! I think I'm going to head back there tomorrow with Jon, the forecast sucks, but I'll be better prepared!