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Cwm Idwal and Glyder Fawr3 Sep 2009
Dagnabbit! Bad weather predicted again! With gales on the peaks, AGAIN!
So yet again our plans were changed.
We decided to walk around some lower lakes (Llyn Geirionydd and Llyn Crafnant) in the nearby Gwydir Forest in the morning, and found the weather clearing a little,
though still with a ceiling of about 850m, keeping the peaks in cloud.
But the generally better feel in demeanour encouraged us to wander up into Cwm Idwal in the afternoon, and see if we could poke our noses up onto the range from there.
We followed the Miner's Track from Idwal Cottage up to the stile over the stone wall in the saddle between Tryfan and the Glyders. It had stayed fine in that hour, but when we got to the saddle, it was howling a gale, buffeting us alarmingly, and sounding like a locomotive coming through a tunnel, so we decided that Tryfan would be a little unsafe and a lot unenjoyable on the ridge and so backed down.
Ever hopeful, we poked our noses up via the Devils Kitchen.
By the time we got onto the range, the weather was definitely lifting a little, and we decided we'd make a dash for Glyder Fawr, only a further 250m vertically up. The weather proceeded to clear off, and we finally got some great views of Tryfan and the Carnedau in one direction, and Snowdon in the other.
Murphy's Law then intervened, and just as we got to the top of Glyder Fawr, it closed in yet again, and vis dropped to about 100m. Phhhhthhhhphhhtttt!
That was our last chance of a peak that wasn't clouded. So close!
Still, we had good views on the way up, and the ascent and descent virtually to ourselves, so it wasn't too disappointing.
Distance:
7.4km in morning (Gwydyr Forest)
10km in afternoon (Cwm Idwal & Glyder Fawr)
