Foel Goch winter climbs

Peaks: Foel Goch, Y Garn
Area: Glyderau, Eryri
Routes: Esgair Gully (wI/II), Easy Gully (wI)
The best winter conditions for 20 years in Snowdonia. Probably more relevant for the technical ice climbs, less so for easy snow gullies, but Alwyn and I had another splendid 'mountaineering' day nonetheless. Low cloud made it difficult to make an assessment of which routes were in, but took the gamble of heading up into a murky Cwm Bual, hoping that Esgair Gully had a decent covering (this is the route I'd descended most of last winter). The steep slog up was made rather depressing by falling sleet and melting snow, but on arrival at the cwm base our luck was clearly in. Esgair gully had decent cover, and huge blue ice crystals draped the walls. We headed up deep drifting snow into the lower section, which was good water ice. The rest of this very atmospheric gully was a tad marginal - some good snow ice, some wet moss, some splendid neve, but always simple. It twists round to the right, then up a short pitch to a narrow squeeze through a cleft before twisting again past some ice crystals to an easy finale, topping out at an alpine-style breche below Yr Esgair. A lovely easy snow gully with a great atmosphere. We then dropped into upper Cwm Coch (a first for me), a gently descending traverse on unconsolidated snow, rather more enjoyable than expected, to the base of Easy Gully. This really is a simple route up a very shallow gully, more a mountaineering access route than a climb. However, the snow was perfect: crusty and reassuring, to the extent that we probably should have chosen the better-defined Red Gully to its right. Quite hard physically, getting on for 150m of calf-busting ascent, to a broad col between Creigiau Gleision and the main face. Quite a fierce wind as we traversed above the cornices up Y Garn, very icy and hostile (no sign of the predicted sunshine). After a quick bite, we headed down Banana (NE) Ridge in a near white-out, excellent snow with a real Alpine feel. Then took a sporting descent down into Cwm Cywion, taking the shallow (wI) gully line next to Summit Gully. This gave a steepish but absorbing descent on good snow down to some perfect ice falls. We had a splendid time climbing these little pitches for an hour or so before descending snow and scree to the old road at Blaen y Nant. Heavy sleet and hail gave us a good soaking as we trudged back to the car.