APRIL 2023 · ADVENTURE

Eryri: Snowdonia - Scrambling around Tryfan

Glyderau, Eryri

The first day of scrambling instruction with LeadingEdge ran Y-Gribin and Seniors Ridge in the Glyderau cirque. Not the hardest routes. That's not the point on day one. Day one is about learning what your hands and feet can do on rock, internalising the sequence before the exposure gets serious.

Tryfan peaks with dark mountain lake nestled in Ogwen Valley — The cirque — everything shaped and deposited by ice

— Day one — manageable sequence

Y-Gribin runs up the western wall of Cwm y Ffynnon to the Glyderau plateau. The ridge gives you a line of handholds and footwork problems in manageable sequence. The glacier lake — Llyn y Cwm — drops away below as you gain height. Looking down at it from a ledge: dark water, the cwm walls on three sides, the valley floor a long way further down again.

The handholds matter more than the summit.
Ogwen Valley — April 2023

Scrambler ascending rocky ridge with exposed hand holds — Holds visible — technique in the body position

— Height and exposure

A scrambler ascending a rocky ridge with exposed handholds — the image is from somewhere in the middle of the route, the holds visible in the frame, the technique in the body position. Another: a scrambler traversing a jagged rock face with a steep drop. The drop is the point. It is there to be seen and managed, not avoided.

Scrambler traversing jagged rock face with steep drop — The drop is there to be seen and managed

Three hikers resting on rocky ledge overlooking lake below — Rest stops earn their views

— Working architecture of the cirque

Three scramblers on a rocky ledge, the lake below them. Rest stops earn their views. The cirque is working architecture — everything shaped and deposited by ice, the angles and surfaces a record of glacial process. The jagged rock formations of the Glyderau are chaotic at close range and coherent from distance.

Hiker on steep mountain slope above glacial lake — Llyn y Cwm dropping away below

— What hands learn

Two people descending to the blue-grey lake at the end of the day. The lake was still. The mountain stream at the base of the route moved between rocks without any assistance from us.

The handholds matter more than the summit. By the end of day one, everyone in the group knew this in their hands.