Cwm Clyd

Crag: Cwm Clyd
Routes: B Gully (wI/II:sol), A Gully (wI:des), C Gully (wII:sol)
Peaks: Y Garn
Area: Glyderau
Even by recent standards, this was a frenetic pre-breakfast outing up and down three gullies in less than 90 minutes before the weather closed in. Remarkably, this was my first visit to Cwm Clyd for 19 years. In January 1991 Tim and I climbed Banana Gully as our first ever winter route then got lost on Glyder Fawr through careless navigation, descending into Nant Peris: a classic youthful error! Although I've done the ridges many times, winter and summer, I'd never been up the other gullies. It's a lovely little cwm (good choice for a solo day), easily reached by a steep slog from Ogwen, and the weather wasn't as bad as I'd expected as I started up the snow slopes at the back of the cwm. The snowline is very high now, 750m, and it felt mild today. That said, conditions were still good, fresh snow on solid neve, as I left the uniform slope of A gully to enter B gully. An early chockstone was easily turned on good solid snow and turf to the right, before lovely cramponing up gentle slopes led to a slight steepening near the top. Shallow but well defined: a nice route. The mountaineering flavour meant a visit to the summit seemed appropriate, before locating A gully (not easy in thick mist) and enjoyably descending its gentle slopes to the mouth of C gully. This is deeper than the others, twisting and atmospheric, though even gentler than B for most of its length. It twists right and contains a bit of ice and a few chockstones before emerging on gentle snow slopes. I was pushed for time, so downclimbed it rather than topping out, so I could jog down from Cwm Clyd back to Ogwen by 10.30am. Quite heavy snow as I descended (and rain lower down).