The weather was not promising and it was later in the year than Graeme and I usually climb so we both decided that maybe we should give Wales a try. It would be playing it by ear as apart from Snowdon I had no idea what the high mountains of Wales were. One thing about Wales you do notice quite quickly is that you don't have far to go anywhere. Snowdonia, like the Lake District, is quite compact. A short journey from the B&B and parked outside a Visitor Centre at Ogwen Cottage. The guy at the café told us to park in the row by the road where it was free, all the other spots apparently cost £2. Reasonable weather and off about 9-30 up a very well made path which soon splits, the right way being mostly used by tourists. The path is always clear and extremely well made, rocky in parts and a few bits where you have to clamber over rocks. It was a wee bit like climbing up Buachaille Etive Mor and in fact Tryfan has a similar shape when seen from some angles. Met quite a few people, the hills are much busier than Scotland, and crossed
a stream (no problem). Just after this you have a choice of going left up to the ridge or straight on to a col, Bwlch Tryfan I believe it's called. We went straight on as Graeme had seen a curious looking ladder on what looked like a fortified wall at the col. By now the wind was fierce and it was nice to get over the stile (for that is all that the ladder turned out to be) and shelter on the other side of the wall. Quite a lot of people here including a group of about 8-10 who walked downhill to climb the easy way onto the ridge leading up to the Glyders. You have a good view of Bristly Ridge which looks fearsome. One couple (one with bandy legs) went straight up in no time and made it look so easy. I believe you can also climb up the scree next to Bristly Ridge but didn't see anyone going that way. An old guy sitting next to us said he had climbed it before and that it wasn't too bad. He claimed to have climbed Tryfan and all the Welsh hills a number of times, from various routes.
After juice the fun begins as Tryfan now shows itself to be a very rocky mountain. There are bits of path but mostly it is a matter of finding your own way up. The south peak comes first though you can bypass its summit. This was possibly the rockiest hill I have ever climbed and there was a lot of scrambling over boulders. At one point Graeme and I split and I came across the old guy who said it was too windy and that he was going down. Later Graeme said he met him as well and that he had given Graeme wrong information about the south peak which he had confused with the real summit. Made us wonder if he really had climbed these peaks before. The peak came at us suddenly and as a shock we were on it much quicker than expected. It is quite an extraordinary summit, no cairn but two huge monoliths like teeth on the top. I gather they are called Adam and Eve and you are supposed to climb on top of both (or jump across them) to truly claim the top. No way.
Immediately a guy appeared from the other direction. Very fit he had travelled up from Portsmouth, leaving home at 4.00am and walked straight up the hill the hard way, by the north ridge. In fact everyone who came up while we were eating and drinking (Guinness ) had used the hard routes. One guy though seemed to be in a state, saying he had been terrified the whole way up - quite brave though. His partner, however, was an arrogant tosser, telling us all how easy it was and deliberately stood precariously on some awkward rocks. We all had a laugh though when he slipped and fell flat on his face. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, he wasn't hurt.
We also had a laugh at the goats which frequent this mountain, one in particular was very invasive and determined to get some food. You would beat a rock in front of it with a stick to make it run away but in no time it was reappearing behind you over the rocks. We got some good photos of it.
Coming off the top was a wee bit more difficult for me and I needed Graeme's help at one point to get down a large boulder. I'm glad the weather was dry and the rocks were not slippy. We found ourselves going further down west than we intended (I gather this is not an unusual feature) but realised we had no real need to get back to the col. We could see the downward path from the ladder clear ahead and simply angled our way down and over to it, cutting out quite a bit of ground. On the way we reached a path of sorts which might well have been a former path to the summit. After crossing a stream, which we remembered from the climb up we made the mistake of going too far left and completely missed the
path going downhill. Somewhat confused we could see a firm path way off to our left and followed a guy who was going in that direction. It turned out that this was the path the tourists had taken earlier. Not a big issue but it meant making our own way down grassy and rocky slopes, over heath land and on to join the day trippers on the stroll along the other path, back to the car. We were both very impressed by this hill. It is only just above munro height but it is a delight, a really nice hill.
