Tryfan and the Glyders

This weekend, Iain, Ed and I went to Snowdonia. Iain had mooted the idea of a weekend in Wales and I suggested that we climb Tryfan because I had heard good things about it from James. We were not disappointed. The steep, rocky scramble was just what I wanted, and was the perfect contrast to the flatlands of Cambridge that the other two needed. The weather was atypical: clear skies and sunshine all day. Our route was a clockwise loop, starting in the north, so the sun followed us round and left us asymmetrically sunburnt.


We did the traditional route, starting from the A5, up the north ridge of Tryfan (above), down the Bristly Ridge, then up Glyder Fach and Fawr before descending the ridge in between the two Glyders. The route was not very far in horizontal terms but it was full of scrambling. The scrambling verged on rock-climbing at one point as our route-finding went a bit awry amongst the heaped slabs of Tryfan's north ridge.

This is our geologist, Ed, who had lots to say about rocks, striation, foliation...

And this is Iain, who had nothing useful to say about rocks, but did have things to say about Queen of the South and Gretna.

This is the most scrambly part of the ridge. We made a bit hard for ourselves near the top but we were determined to get the full Tryfan experience.


And here is a view of the top of Tryfan. You can just see Adam and Eve at the top of the hill. I did the leap between the rocks, but Iain and Ed declined.

We skirted the tricky buttresses of Glyder Fach and climbed the steep scree slope to the left. The top of Fach is not so exciting, but it is odd-looking. It is a rough, rocky plateau with little tufts of rock splinters dotted around. The cantilever stone shown below is on the plateau.


Below, looking back from Glyder Fawr towards Tryfan and Glyder Fach.


And here is Snowdon in the distance, with Crib Goch visible.


After completing our tour of the Glyders, we descended a ridge to the east of Tryfan.

A grand day out!

Recycling

Over the past (nearly) month, I have been occupied by looking for, buying and then riding my new bike. My old mountain bike, which I had had for 11 years, was stolen in Cambridge. With the help of Robin, who professes to be something of an expert in these matters, I plumped for a discounted 2006 Trek 6500, sans disc brakes. It is a lovely orange colour, and I shall put up a photo at some point. I decided not to go for disc brakes because it allowed me to get better componentry for my budget, plus a lighter bike. The bike is disc ready, so upgrading later should not be a problem.

I got the bike about 2 weeks ago and I have been out on four rides. There was an interlude of about a week when I went to visit Laila and Sai. The Saturday was my birthday, and we spent it in Bath, enjoying the sunshine, ice creams, Georgian and Roman architecture, and donkeys. We also called in at Taunton and Cheddar Gorge. I never realised that the Gorge would be so dramatic! I then stayed in Stoke for a few days, before calling in to see Jonathan in Bolton. A great trip and wonderful to see everyone again and catch up. It's reassuring that we never change much.

Anyway, after the four rides, the bike is still going well, but I have yet to figure out how to properly clean grit off the chain. Must buy some accessories! Paraphenalia and upgrade purchases are one of the joys of cycling. The only gripe I have is with the forks. They are Manitou Axel Elite with 80mm travel. That's not much travel, and so far I have only been able to get about 60mm out of them. I'm not a mad cyclist, but I do some drop offs and hops, and I have ploughed the front end in occasionally. Surely, I should have got more out of them than this? Plus the fork feels quite stiff. I'm not greatly experienced with forks, but I think a 100mm+ fork with plusher ride will be my next big upgrade, whenever I can afford it.