With what appears to be a possible return for winter climbing conditions arriving (literally as I type), it would seem a good time to summarize the astonishing wave of activity that happened in February. The initial cold periods in December and January were good, but they were dwarfed by the arrival of some truly fantastic snow and ice conditions which appeared the following month. Enthusiasm levels quickly reached fever pitch and soon there was talk of this being the best season for 10 years!

Many of the big, sought after routes came into condition and suddenly climbers from all over the country started arriving in North Wales eager to get those elusive Cold Climbs ticks done while they lasted. The following list of classics should be enough to get any winter climber twitching with anticipation: Cascade V and Chequered Wall VI on Craig y Rhaeadr, Western Gully V on Ysgolion Duon/Black Ladders and the Devil’s Appendix VI and Devil’s Kitchen IV in Cwm Idwal, even the elusive Trojan V down on Cadair Idris came into nick (see pics on Baggy's blog here).

Aside from the stampede to grab the classics, there were some very interesting repeats of the harder mixed routes by some experienced Sheffield based teams. Ian Parnell teamed up with locals, Mark ‘Baggy’ Richards and Dave Evans to make a repeat of The Scott Report, an old VI on the Black Ladders first climbed by Chris Parkin and Dai Lampard in 1996. Although the lads think they followed a slightly different line on the upper section of the second pitch, they felt what they had climbed was worth VII 7/8.

Also on the Ladders, Rich Cross and Andy Benson managed a repeat of another Chris Parkin winter route, the legendary Flanders. This was originally given a grade of old school VI, and despite a quick repeat from Dai Lampard it had been considered a serious contender for the hardest mixed route in North Wales (at least that was the suggestion before Nick Bullock blitzed Clogwyn Du in 2006). Interestingly Rich and Andy reckoned VII 8 was about right. Having the difficulty of lines like these confirmed by outsiders has helped enormously to establish grading benchmarks against which other routes can be measured. It might even encourage some of the old school players to adopt a modern grading system, instead of the traditional ‘nothing harder than VI’ approach which had dominated in certain parts of the Welsh winter scene.

Back in Black on the Equator Walls in the Llanberis Pass saw a repeat from Baggy who climbed it in two big pitches reckoning VI 6 as opposed to VII 7 mooted by first ascenscionist Pete Harrison. Baggy praised the quality of the second pitch which provided really good, continually absorbing and interesting climbing, firstly on ice, then switching into mixed ground.

Andy Cave and Rich Cross nabbed a few new winter ascents on Craig Lloer. Moonrise Direct VI 7 follows Moonrise to its traverse left, before making a direct finish up the short overhanging wall into a final awkward groove - great climbing including a wide can opener crack apparently. First Trinity Groove (with the right hand variation at the top, into the last pitch on Second Trinity Groove) went at IV 4. An excellent turf lined groove with spaced protection on the first pitch lead to a second pitch up a turfy groove and chimney. North Arete was also ascended at around III/IV. This latter summer route was climbed a few days later by locals, Mark Lynden and Noel Craine. This time the lads, unaware yet of Andy and Rich’s ascent, took a different line after the first pitch, trending off onto the steep slabs on the right for another two pitches with some quite serious ground on the second pitch. North Ridge Variant rates IV 4.

On Craig yr Ysfa Bob Brewer and Dai Lampard climbed Quantitative Easing, a route of unspecified difficulty (Dai’s stock answer on grades is normally: “harder than V”) with a line loosely based on the summer VS, Shean Treuse on the side wall of Great Gully. This gave seven or eight pitches of action packed fun in a spectacular location. Also in the Carneddau on Llech Ddu, Baggy and Pete Harrison climbed three interesting winter lines. Corridor Gully IV 6 takes the right hand of the two gullies at the extreme left end of the cliff yielded a fine turfy route with a crux pull surmounting a jammed boulder, whilst Trauma Corner V 4 gave a serious pitch up the innocuous left facing corner left of Corridor Gully. And lastly Not One Iota V 6 which climbs the gully just right of the summer route Iota and finishes at the skylight visible at the top of the cliff. The second pitch gave excellent mixed climbing up a left facing corner on small blobs of turf.

And just around the corner on the Black Ladders the old mixed climbing master, Chris Parkin returned to his stomping grounds to climb Cannon Ball VI 8 with Steve Long. This five to six pitch route follows the summer line of Evans and Co, with a particularly fierce crack section, which is thankfully well protected. Chris first tried the line back in 1995 and has always kept it in mind as it forms the third part of a trilogy of first winter ascents based on the three HVS routes on the crag: Flanders, Cannon Rib and Evans and Co. The ascent of Cannon Ball did not come easily; Chris mentioned taking a few twenty five foot falls and desperately hand jamming in big gloves at one point whilst his axes dangled uselessly at his waist!

Baggy was busy on Glyder Fach and Cyrn Las, climbing a series of new winter lines. On Glyder Fach with Gaz Davies he did Honey, Honey IV 5, a sixty metre pitch straight up the slabby/turfy wall right of Square Chimney, and Mama Mia IV 5 the obvious turfy groove line a few metres to the right with crux moves passing an overlap. In the same area he also climbed Square Chimney Buttress Variant IV 6 – this takes an independent line up a left hand corner before moving left to reach the spike belay beneath pitch two of the summer route. Thereafter the summer line is followed into easy ground.

On Cyrn Las, this time climbing with Dave Evans and Andy Teasdale, Baggy climbed Costa Del Peris IV/V, an ice and turf line starting up The Gutter and picking a line left of Face Route. The same team also climbed another ice pillar/wall in the same area. Face Off rates V. Both lines may have been done before, but were not previously recorded.

The action wasn’t confined to pure winter climbing either: Neil Dyer made a valiant attempt to complete the ‘King of the Pass’ trilogy by climbing Cascade, Right Wall and Jerry’s Roof (that’ll be a grade V icefall, an E5 rock route and a V9/7C boulder problem) all in one day. After bagging Cascade in the morning Neil decided on a whim to go for it whilst he was waiting at the roadside for his girlfriend to turn up (the original intention being that they would go for a walk). Right Wall was pretty wet with many of the larger holds full of water and the ledges lined with snow. Neil set off in a snow storm with fingerless gloves and very nearly made it to the girdle ledge, slipping off snowy ledges just short of its sanctuary and taking a pretty exciting whipper in the process. On the way back down the valley he did a cursory lap of Jerry’s Roof, just to check if he could have done it. This particular challenge will have to wait another year or ten, depending when Cascade comes in again.

And finally, mention should be made of a new dry tooling route in the Dinorwig Quarries. On the leaning blank wall (with a tunnel at its base) opposite Patellectomy a fully bolted line was created back in January by Rocio Siemens and Owen Samuel. This proved to be quite tricky and the route had to wait until late February until Pete Harrison stepped in and redpointed it at around M8+. There are plans for more routes of this nature to be established on appropriate sections of rock, i.e. ones that are too blank, steep and wet to be of any worth for conventional rock climbing.

That’s all for now, its snowing on the tops again - lets hope it sticks and the temperatures stay low!

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