Excellent Winter Conditions in the Glyders.

Our chosen route today was a round of the Glyder range of mountains in the Snowdonia National Park.  The day began cloudy with few summits clear but the weather improved as the day went on and as we reached the summit ridge, the sun came out and we enjoyed magnificent views for the rest of the day.  We parked beside Llyn Ogwen and headed straight up steep ground past impressive waterfalls and into Cwm Bochlwyd.  After a brief pause we took to the wonderful ridge of Y Gribbin which took us quickly to the summit slopes with some vertiginous scrambling towards the top.  On the way up we saw welsh mountain goats; I have yet to secure good images of these.  As we emerged at the summit the sun came out giving the most amazing views of Tryfan, the Glyder plateau and Snowdon.  Huge snow cornices abounded at the top of every cwm.  We made our way to the summit of Glyder Fawr where we enjoyed lunch (tomato soup and soreen for me), before making our way down very steep snow covered slopes necessitating the use of ice axe and crampons for security.  Once at the col, where the path continues down to Llyn Idwal past the Devil's Kitchen, we turned our faces uphill once more to climb our final summit of the day: Y Garn, where we again had wonderful views, this time of  Tryfan and The Glyders and all of our route for the day.  The intention was to take the steep path down the north ridge of Y Garn, but when we reached the top, it was blocked by the cornice.  Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour we continued to Foel Goch where we descended by its ridge and the quaintly named 'mushroom garden'.  Soon we were back at the car and heading back to Llanberis; it was beer o'clock again!!
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