So we’ve been working quietly away at the van making updates and new features, and fixing old ones.
Included in the pictures is the new wine rack, a new shelf in the front for the passengers (made from perspex), new storage pockets, various storage attachments and some other things.
We’re almost ready for the Alps – just a few more things that could be done, but they may wait until afterwards.
A couple of weekends ago, a group of old friends came together from London and Cambridge and ended up in Snowdonia, camped below Tryfan. A misty murky morning on Saturday meant a slow start. We opted for some scrambling, doing a route on the East face of Tryfan. We actually started up the face one gully too early, so ended up on a different, but no less good route. Good to get one of the route-finding failures out the way early in the season.
Ending up on the north ridge a bit early, we zoomed up the easier rock, until finding more interesting challenges. We continued straight over the top to avoid crowds and headed on to the north face of Glyder Fach. Despite the mist, the rock was in good condition, so up another scramble, then down to the campsite.
As we’re rarely in Snowdonia in summer, we made the most of the daylight with a quick route on Tryfan Bach before a late dinner. We then managed to get everyone hiding from the midges inside the van quite comfortably.
Sunday dawned with slightly better weather, so we headed for Idwal for easy approach and exit when the weather inevitably turned.
Once at the bottom of the crag, the weather turned for the better, so after splitting up a bit, we made a mountain day of it. Jo went off to sketch, I moved together with Joe up an easy route on Idwal, scrambled out the top, and ended up on the great Central Arete. I wonder if I’ll ever pitch a route again, as it was so much less faff to move together. We met up at the top and descended over Y Garn to an ice cream.
Yellow Van Mountaineering 