Ogwen 2019
Ogwen, the trip that is known for being one of the wettest, surprised us this year with some climbable weather! The weekend started poorly with a disappointing viewing of the rugby world cup final in the local pub however, it soon picked up with trad, walking, scrambling bouldering and sport all occurring, unheard of I know, who said we were a club that only did trad!
Very early on Saturday morning, a few incredibly keen in individuals went on a run and dip in Llyn Idwal coming back incredibly cold but revitalised! Everyone stayed in the Ogwen valley apart from a rogue group of boulderers. They ended up at Parisella’s cave, happening to meet up with some other club members, also escaping Birmingham for just the day. The rest of the stoats were split between the classic scramble up the north face of Tryfan, some multiplitch on little Tryfan and a few climbing the (Idwal ridge - Getting name off Jake) described as one that felt like it could have been anywhere in the world it was so inspiring. Everyone came back a bit wet, especially the scramblers who managed to fall into a bog 10 minutes from the road, but all having enjoyed their day out.
Sunday turned out to be forecasted to be an even brighter day so we split into two groups and headed to both Tremadog for from single/multi pitch trad, and Penmaen head for some limestone sport.
All was going so well at the multi pitch until a bit of miscalculation of the time left in the day caused a certain Matthew Bilella to be forced to lower of both his seconds and then set up a double retrievable abseil so that he didn’t lose any gear. At least the night time sends of Low House were not repeated.
The sport group had better luck, even though one car ended up at a different crag, the trip organisers fault entirely, they found the crag to be pretty “Morpho” - Jake Walters 2019, with many knee bars and heel hooks required, especially on one route where a certain Tom Moses took a massive whipper.
With all vehicles stopping at either a quite frankly terrible burger king, or what seemed like a much better McDonalds on the way home, the trip ended with the classic fast food dinner. One of the best Ogwens I’ve been on and certainly one where the most climbing has been successfully done. It was lovely having some of the older members return (Tom & Rosie <3) and other MAM (Dave & Chris) and great for our members to chat to you all. A great trip all round!