Continuing with our training for the alps, I headed to North Wales again, this time to the mountains!  I was keen to get a good long mountain day done, refresh myself with fast, slick ropework and try to break in my new (embarassingly orange) mountain boots!

We parked at the Ogwen Cottage and hiked up to the base of the Idwal Slabs, I was keen to make sure that we travelled fast and light with minimal faffing in order to get myself in the alpine mindset.  We quickly scampered up the Original Route of the slabs, fairly straight forward climbing but quite exposed and polished, I also decided to take a cheeky variation finish on the last pitch just to spice things up a little!  We then scrambled (in a brief rain shower) up a series of small steps and rock walls and up into Cwm Cneifion, we crossed the Cwm and scampered uo to the base of the Cneifion Arete.  This arete has a steep 40 metre pitch on massive jug holds to start, followed by another hundred metre or so of fantastic exposed arete climbing on enormous holds and flakes.

It was an amazing day with brilliant weather, even the couple of brief showers semed to arrive just at the right times when we were getting too hot, they cooled us down nicely.  I was really happy that after a winter of bouldering, I can still rememeber how to stay safe but still move fast over tricky mountain terrain and my ropework was all fast, simple and effective..... perfect!

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