I had some old friends up from Bournemouth this weekend, I used to take them out on the hills many years ago when I was first qualifying as an instructor. They came up to do some scrambling but with the snow on the hills we went winter climbing instead.
On saturday, we went to do Sinister Gully, but the snow seemed a little weird at the bottom so we opted for the Parson’s Nose. Which I have done many times in summer but never in winter. As a winter route its just as good and has some great short technical problems. We check the snow at the top of the gully we wanted to climb and it was much better.
We descended down Crib Y Drysgl and bum slid down from Blwch Coch. I cooked a lovely mexican meal that evening and got a few more friends over, and tried not to over indulge.
Today we head up to the Trinity face where it was much colder, and snow was better. We headed up Central Trinity, and I got my friend to rope together and lead it. They moved together until they wanted a belay and then taught them T-Axe belays and they climbed 4 pitches to the top. Where I showed them a stomper belay, before heading back down to Pen Y Pass.
I got the feeling that they really enjoyed there weekend.