ron-t climbing
08 November 2017 ................ Y Gribin and Glyder Fawr
One of the things I haven`t ever done is climb up the crest of Y Gribin - I have come down the path down the flank of Y Gribin a couple of times now, and it isn`t much fun as a way down.
However the crest of Y Gribin is listed as a grade 1 scramble, so I thought it would be worth a look.
This is a picture I took some weeks ago, looking up at the scrambley bit of Y Gribin -
The weather forecast was quite good for the day, with a front arriving but not until the evening, and MWIS was promising a 90% chance of clear tops during the day - they got that wrong in no uncertain fashion !
So I planned out my route for the day - up the path from Idwal Cottage up to Llyn Idwal, along the side of Llyn Idwal then up to the left up a path which is shown on the map, and which climbs up the flank of the lower end of Y Gribin, and meets the main path that heads up the ridge.
Then up and over Glyder Fawr, down to the coll, and then see if I could come down Sheep Walk, the sloping green ledge to the right of the Devil`s Kitchen.
I am on the path beside Llyn Idwal now - and looking up into the Devils Kitchen - Sheep Walk is the steeply sloping green ledge on the right of the Devil`s Kitchen, not the long green gully right over on the right hand side of the picture.
There is an interesting looking hole in the cliffs right over on the left of the picture - no idea what it is or how deep it is, I haven`t ever seen any reference to it.
Round a bit to the left, and I think these are the Idwal Slabs climbing up the flank of Senior`s Ridge - I am not sure, but I think the Idwal Slabs are the nearer and lower bits of all this rock face - I haven`t ever got a clear idea of where they are, but it seems to be a fair bet that this is them.
Quite apart from their use as a climbing venue, I think there are a couple of scrambling routes up around the Idwal Slabs, but I don`t really know how suitable they would be for my lack of climbing abilities.
And so along the path beside the water, then turning up the path that climbs up the side of Y Gribin - and it turned out to be a bit of a challenge - it starts of as a mixture of scree and path and water - lots of water - so you pretty much have to find your own way up.
Then it gets narrower and steeper and even wetter - so you end up scrambling up what is pretty much a river bed.
Eventually it gets a little less steep, on to grass, and then heads across the ridge to join up with the main path.
I have wondered if this path would be an easier way down from Y Gribin, rather than following the main path down to Llyn Bochlwyd, and on down the Llyn Bochlwyd path back to Idwal Cottage.
Well now I know - it isn`t - it would be a horrible descent, it was bad enough going up it.
And so up the path up Y Gribin and up to the "football pitch", and time for a bit of lunch before tackling the scrambley bit.
The scrambley bit up the crest of Y Gribin was totally magic - super scrambling on clean rock - there is a path up quite a bit of the ridge a few metres off to the right, but I managed to stay right on the crest for just about the whole way up.
There was one bit where I climbed up to the base of a huge boulder - there was no way I could get over it, but there was a route round to the left, and a route round to the right.
I looked at the route round to the left - it was do-able, but ....... you had to climb up a narrow ledge and over a boulder, right above a huge drop down into the upper reaches of Cwm Bochlwyd.
It just wasn`t worth the risk, so I wimped out and followed the much safer route round to the right of the boulder, and then back onto the crest.
All too soon the scrambling ran out, and it was back onto the grass and stones of the upper reaches of Y Gribin - and it was by now clear that the cloud was fairly coming in, and the summits were starting to disappear, so I took a few photos of what I could still see - they are not the best of pictures, but they are just about the only views I got.
A rather strange view of Tryfan, still catching the sun - and curiously enough I couldn`t see a single person on Tryfan - very unusual -
Looking up at Glyder Fâch, with a big bank of cloud behind it, and wisps of cloud starting to drift across Castell y Gwynt -
Looking across the upper part of Cwm Cneifion across to Glyder Fawr starting to disappear into the cloud, with the top end of Senior`s Ridge on the right -
And Y Garn also disappearing into the cloud -
I never saw anything from Glyder Fawr, it was well into the cloud, and I even got my map and compass out to make sure I was going in the right direction.
Heading down to the coll between Glyder Fawr and Y Garn, and I finally dropped down below the cloud - so this is looking across to Y Garn, but more importantly, it is showing the top end of Sheep Walk.
I carefully noted how the path up Y Garn split, how I would then head over to the right, to get to the top of Sheep Walk - or what I thought was the top of Sheep Walk -
A couple of photos taken now I was below the cloud - looking over the top of Llyn Idwal across to the Carneddau well into the cloud -
Looking along the flank of Glyder Fawr below the cloud and over Y Gribin to Tryfan still catching a bit of sun -
And just for something completely different - as I was coming down I noticed this stone that was starting to split - it would be roughly 150mm by 150mm in size - rather fun to see a stone splitting like that -
Well my planning all worked a treat - I got to exactly where I wanted to be to head down Sheep Walk.
Except I didn`t.
Because what I thought was the top of Sheep Walk wasn`t the top of what I thought Sheep Walk should look like, it was the top of a long steep gully.
Well at that point I didn`t know quite what to do, I didn`t know if it was or wasn`t Sheep Walk, I didn`t know if I had passed Sheep Walk, or if I hadn`t got to it - I couldn`t afford the time to wander around looking for it, because the days are so short now - it looked as if it would be okay to go down it.
So that is what I did - it was pretty foul - very wet, very steep, I had to constantly traverse right or left to find a way down, and it just seemed to go on and on.
But eventually I escaped from its clutches and made it down to the path that comes down from the Devils Kitchen and heads round the west side of Llyn Idwal.
At that point I could look back up and towards the Devil`s Kitchen, and I could see Sheep Walk further back - so I had actually gone too far up Y Garn before turning right, and had passed the top end of Sheep Walk without realising it - if you go back to the first picture, you can see Sheep Walk, and you can see the gully I came down over on the right hand side of the picture.
Sometime in the future I`ll do a trip up to the Devil`s Kitchen and have a closer look at it, as it is something I haven`t ever done.
It is possible to climb up the Devil`s Kitchen if you are enough of a masochist - I don`t think I have much desire to do it, but it will be interesting to go have a closer look at it.
And maybe investigate the hole in the cliff over to the left.
Then head up Sheep Walk and see where it comes out.
But back to this trip, and I headed off around Llyn Idwal, along the beach, across the bridge, and back to my starting point, and got down to where I was parked with just a few minutes of daylight left.
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PS - After writing up all the above, I did a little digging, and found that the photo I had taken of Y Garn from the upper part of Y Gribin actually showed what I had done wrong quite well, although it was a bit small.
So I did a bit of digital manipulation, and cut out the relevant bit of the photo and enhanced it, to produce the picture below.
You can see how the path divides, and where I came across, and the start of the gully I went down, although the gully itself is somewhat hidden.
So in fact I was only 100 metres or so from the top of Sheep Walk, I was the wrong side of the sort of rocky rib.
The fact that the gully is hidden was partly my downfall, because I didn`t know there are two sort of entrances that actually look quite similar - the one on the left of the rocky rib is the entrance to Sheep Walk, the one on the right of the rocky rib is the entrance to the gully I came down.
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