Jamie Rooke - 171528

This was Mike and Kate's first experience of being on a mountain. Mike is doing a charity walk up Kilimanjaro so they wanted some experience in the hills.
The weather was pretty awful, right from Ogwen car park. I pulled away from the idea of Snowdon due to conditions. Original aim was to head up to Llyn y Cwn and back. Both were well equipped and comfortable in the conditions so i briefed them about slippery rock and just taking that extra care with footing.
I gave the guys a bit of history of Cwm Idwal, we talked a little about glaciation and the story of Idwals murder! We crossed the stream that cuts through the path, just past the Idwal Slabs, which gave Mike a chance to help Kate and look after her!
The rain calmed down as we reached Llyn y Cwn, but the visibility was still really poor and wind began to pick up.I gave the guys the choice of heading back or if comfortable, we could head over Y Garn and they happily encouraged to push on! We had to follow the lake to locate our position and took a bearing from the lake to the summit and followed out compass to the summit. (Our map blew away on this stretch- learning curve!)
We happily made it to the summit and had a bite to eat, take about the history of Cairns and that some were once burial ground and should be respected and cleaned where possible. By this time, the cloud had lifted somewhat but wind had not. We moved on just as we started to cool- an important lesson for the guys about monitoring personal temperatures and knowing when to get going.
Kate got a little unnerved by the wind, just before we took the line off the summit, so I encouraged the guys to lean against the wind a little and had Mike 'protect' Kate, again reinforcing her sense of comfort and Mikes of looking after his girlfriend.
Rest of descent was pretty pleasant- cloud, rain and wind were gone and we enjoyed the views of the Ogwen valley and got some lovely pictures! A rewarding day was had by all.