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The plan for today, smithed the previous evening over a glass or two of mineral water in the academic library (Welsh transl. Bryn Twrch) ...
… was simply to scramble around on the west face of Tryfan, starting off with Milestone Approach, and then moving on as the fancy took us.
I didn't take a pic of MB, but this is one I took on a session in 2015.
In the event, Milestone approach looked rather damp, so we gave it a miss and started a scramble route further up towards the main gulley.
20220601-093200.
20220601-093457.
20220601-100456.
20220601-100525.
Initially it wasn't too bad, but the rock within the shadow of the gulley became increasingly greasy. Eventually we arrived at something of a crux, where grip was sufficiently insecure for us to decide to use the rope.
20220601-102117.
Initially it wasn't too bad, but the rock within the shadow of the gulley became increasingly greasy as we ascended. Eventually we arrived at something of a crux, where grip was sufficiently insecure for us to decide to use the rope.
20220601-110246.
20220601-110446.
This is looking down just above the crux.
20220601-110451. And this is looking at the crux point itself - quite difficult to get any sense of perspective from the pic.
20220601-110901. This is clearly a route that's been used multiple times! This permanent belay point was a short distance above the place that we belayed from.
After that we scrambled diagonally up the west face, picking out all kinds of choice bits of rock; and clearly so engrossed in the combination of that and route finding that neither of us took any further pics until we raised our heads to look around a bit...
20220601-134150.
20220601-134202.
20220601-134244.
20220601-134948.
20220601-140205.
No pics after this. Just a rough scramble down to the grass, which I had some idea was a route. Phil didn't believe me, and he was probably right!
Approximate Route, looking at the west face of Tryfan.
