Had, yet another hectic week leading up to Welsh Rock. spent Wednesday going down to Gilwell to see Lucy's Exlporer belt presentation, very good and quite inspiring. Defently something everybody of the age and with a passion for adventure should be aiming to do.

Met chris on the friday evening after swiniging by the Griffiths residence for some helmets, loaded the car, setting off south around 7.30pm. Hit some traffic around Queensferry, which continued along the coast moving quite slowly. Eventually got to Ogwen about 10, threw up tents, met Ash, Martin an Nige and then down to the Bryn Tyrnn to sink a few pints before back to the camp to crash. Cheers to Mike for driving.

Forecast for saturday was looking pretty poor so decided to go for a stroll round Cadir Idriss to the south. Did the classic horseshoe route in really good weather. Lots of atmosphere to the place, somewhere to defently go back to, big routes to be had.


Once down heeded to Dollegau (SP!?) for some ice cream... paid for by me because I lost our game of Poo-sticks on the way down! the drive back to Ogwen was, great, fantastic views and really good warm weather. Stopped at Rock Bottom to eye up shiny gear and then back to the campsite.

Convinced Ash that the weather was too good to sit at the campsite so went to do a route on Gribon facet by Cwm Idwal. Knew we would have to be fast as we were meeting Luce in Bangor 7/8ish so packed light and went very quickly up to the crag. Decided on doing 'Zig Zag' a three pitch, 1* Severe. Reckonned to speed things up we could do it in 2 pitches. Ash did the first, up a steep section and then out onto a ramp, then I followed him up leading through up a chimmney witha very nice layback move to the top. Could feel the weathe changing so packed stuff and ran back to the cottage. Matt + Ash =1, Rain = nil.


Once at the car... feeling very very warm after our run proceeded to drive very quickly to Bangor to meet the others for tea. Turns out Lucy's train had decided to not stop at Bangor so the other went to pick her up in Llandudno before meeting us. Had a few drinks in a pub before eventually getting a table at the curryhouse. Eat loads of food, Curry was pretty good however not that hot for a Madras but still good. Drove back with Ash, ready to crash out... until I got a call from Smiler who was coming up for the ramble tomarrow telling up that his car was stuck! His Tom Tom had taken him the wrong way, and he was stuck between a stram and a rock a few hundred metres from the campsite. Myself, Ash, Martin and Chris set off up to pull him out, and after lots of pushing and rokcing manged to get the car free. Then, eventually to bed...

Got up on Sunday still feeling pretty tired, led the Ormskirk Network crew on their ramble up the North ridge on Tryfan. Quite a few people came down despite the forecast, Smiler, Luce and Emma and her dad. Took quite a direct route, and managed to break Nige's knees! Started to rain loads as we got to the top so sacked off continuing on to do Bristly Ridge and dropepd down to the road and walked in the rain back to the campsite to meet everybody else who had either got very wet on their route... or got to the bottom of their route and turned around faced with the prospect of getting wet!

As a consequence of the bad weather ended up in the Pub around 4pm... had several drinks and then eventually orderd food, had a very bice chicken stuffed with herbs and cheese and wrapped in bacon. Talked many a topic with many a people, then supped wiskey with Martin and Ash courtesy of Smiler. Was about to leave when Luce decided it would be a good idea to buy me and Martin Tequila... smart move that... Eventually got back to the campsite once again courtesy to the magnificant Mr. Nolan.