Garry Peasland - 333504

As a group we were camping at Swallow Falls Hotel - breakfast made on a cooking stove and my JetBoil.

A guided route for Ben and Joe (seen in photo) the plan was to ascend Tryfan via the North Ridge, up Bristly Ridge and onto Gylder Fach, over Castell Y Gwynt and descend via Y Gribin.

We parked up in the Lay-by on the A5 (gr 670 605) and began our journey and ascended the path to the left of Tryfan Bach, at gr 671 598 we turned right heading in an Easterly direction towards Tryfan.

The start of the North Face of Tryfan is always interesting and there are many routes that can be taken - on reaching the cannon rock pointing out towards Lyn Ogden after a small snack and refreshments we continued our journey.

Ben was proficient in his scrambling abilities, although I needed to temper those abilities against Joe’s abilities and Ben not being too over confident. I demonstrated to Joe when he scrambles rock sections how and what he is looking for in the rock features to make his climb easier, I also explained and demonstrated how to transfer your weight to aid ascent. We summited Tryfan and took the customary summit photos of Adam and Eve - this ascent was Joe’s first and he was chuffed to bits. From here we descended to Tryfan South Peak and to Bwlch Tryfan and onto Bristly Ridge.

The guidebooks state that both Tryfan and Bristly Ridge are grade 1 scrambles - well within the SML remit. However, Bristly Ridge definitely needs to be re-evaluated, in my opinion, as Main Gully at times has continuous climbing with lots of exposure.

When we arrived at the start of the gully a guy called Mathew approached me and asked whether he could Join our group on this ascent. My group doned their helmets - a route known for rocks been knocked by other climbers due to the nature of the gully. My concern for Mathew was that he did not have a helmet and I explained the risks especially with this route. So I let Ben lead the group, then Joe - this allowed me to spot Joe and talk him up sections, with Mathew following at the rear. After 45 minutes of scrambling we emerged on the top of Bristly Ridge - on the way up I had to use a confidence rope and belayed Joe on one section to aid his ascent, also as thought some rocks were dislodged down the gully. I was glad Mathew had joined our group for the ascent as I was able to co-ordinate his moves and ensure he was safe from rock falls. Mathews climbing abilities were excellent having done many climbs in the Peak District, however he felt that this ascent had pushed his abilities at times and shared with me that he had felt the Shaky Leg syndrome at one point. On the Summit of Bristly Ridge, Mathew shook our hands and thanked us for leading him up the gully - he took my FaceBook details for future connections.

From here we had our snacks and refreshements and then moved onto stand on the Canti-Lever Stone. From the Canti-Lever Stone we summited Gylder Fach and onto the mountain of winds - Castell Y Gwynt. We then circled Bwlch y Ddwy-Gylder and descended Y Gribin (another scramble - an easy grade 1 scramble, although some great views of the Ogwen Valley). We finally descended to Llyn Bochlwyd and descended the waterfalls of Nant Bochlwyd and eventually out onto the A5 near Milestone Buttress ( gr 661 603) from here we needed to walk back along the A5 to our parked car further down the road.


I had learned plenty of lessons on this journey. Plenty of leadership skills on guiding my group safely and successfully over graded scrambles - providing advice, guidance, motivation, confidence. Some map reading was necessary - although it’s a route I know well, however it was good to review my 1:10K OS map to compare the contours on the map to the ground.


Great Times
Great Memories.