Mountain Rescue Training

Its been my turn today to be a casualty on Mountain Rescue training exercises. I was set the scenario of placing myself on the steep scree under Cyfrwy on Cadair Idris with a broken leg. I was looked after well by the team and recovered effectively down the steep scree. It was intresting for myself being on the receiving end experiencing being in a steep area on a stretchier.

The winter conditions on the hill were a lot better than I expected with a lot of the easy gully's still being filled with good neve although with the forecast set to warm up I would expect this to disappear fairly soon.

Cwm Lloer

Cwm Lloer is still in good shape with the snow still bullet hard. Rob and myself climbed Broad Gully with a Moonlighting variation which provided a good ice pitch before descending down Hourglass Gully where unfortunately a very nasty sad incident had just happened which is a reminder to us all of the risks involved in winter. We then shot up Right Hand Y Gully before heading back to the car to head over to V12 to pick up a new winter guide.

Back on the Ladders

Things are still looking good up on the Black Ladders with plenty of teams out again today including Huw and myself for the second time this week. We kicked of the day with a blast up East Gully III to let the ques on Pyramid Gully IV4 our intended route die down. A fantastic ice pitch was found on this followed by very good snow up the last few pitches. Back to Pyramid gully and unluckily the second team on the route had abandoned due to being hit by a large block of ice from the team above. We got on Pyramid Gully at the second pitch which yet again provided a fantastic ice pitch followed by a few more good snowy pitches.

Black Ladders

With everything down in the south of the park completely disappeared Huw and myself head north up to Black Ladders for the day. The snow which survived the thaw is now bullet hard which provides really good climbing. We climbed Central Gully III4 which kinda rambled around but provided some interesting climbing and some near vertical snow sections. We also had a look at Pyramid Gully IV5 which we ended up backing off from.