Trip Summary

The club returned to the Cwm Dyli bunkhouse at the foot of Snowdon for the third successive Easter. The trip was characterized by extraordinary and rare weather conditions. It had snowed heavily across the whole UK in the days leading up to the trip and the general advice was not to risk walking in the mountains. However, all five days of the trip were marked by beautifully clear skies, high cloud and relatively low winds, making it easy to keep warm on summits and ridges despite being slightly below zero. Luckily, most popular routes were passable without crampons and/or ice axes. Those that took the extra equipment could add some variations to routes but the rest of us still had plenty available.

Those who made it to summits and ridges were treated with exquisite and rare views of all of northern Snowdonia covered in snow and ice as well as Anglesey and Holyhead. Short views of snow drifts and weird ice-formations were also everywhere. Those who brought cameras were afforded the opportunity to take some of the best photographs of their lives. Over 1000 photos of the trip are already on facebook and they are nothing less than stunning. Some of them could easily be mistaken for the Alps in summer. I'm sure that everyone who came was aware that they had experienced something very rare and special this trip.

Morale was high for the whole trip and the socialising and catering were as good as ever.

Some of the notable incidents of the trip were:

• Worst footwear ever: smooth-soled gym-slippers are not a good substitute for walking boots.

• Worst ever April Fool's joke: screaming "Fire" leading to evacuation and fire extinguisher being primed.

• Failed attempts at lock-picking after being accidentally locked out of the bunkhouse.

There will never be another trip quite like this again. It was one in a million.

Trip Participants

Mark Jackson, Antonia Cuff, Shane Li, Laurent Michaux, Tom Leach, Chris Arran, Paul Cook, Rebecca Howard, Andrena Ball, Joe Hobbs, Maartje, Adam Majewski, Alex Elliot, Tom Owen, Constanze Hammerle, Marina Romanello, Paul Fox, Fiona Petersen and Eric Harshfield.

Photos

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