Restoration and tourism - the Llanberis quarries...

after our excursion up Ordinary Route on Saturday, Claire and I elected for a gentler Sunday morning with a trip to Pete's Eats (go if you've never been and are in Llanberis) and then a wander around the lower slate quarries...

As you come down the Llanberis Pass and see the scarred flanks of Elidir Fawr it does appear that the quarries are a hideous blot on the landscape - and to a point they are. They come from a time where no-one gave a damn about tourism and how things would look to later generations....and yet...

When you actually go around them they have an interesting ambience. The area has managed to put some great tourist trails around them whilst still keeping some of the old buildings and machinery and making everything work really well.....most interesting.

Obviously - we were also interested in the climbs; most of the climbing is up on the upper tier which we didn't get to (and is usually approached from Dinworic), however we saw enough on the lower tiers (including the seminal 'Comes the Dervish - the first and still one of the best slate routes) that we are both inspired for future visits. Slate is also climbable all year round and dries almost instantly :-); both as climbers and interested visitors we'll be back..

Weekend in Wales..

Claire and I had planned a weekend in N. Wales with Suilvan - and with the promise of a decent weather forecast we drove over on Fri night. The repairs to the Ogwen Cottage complex were done and it looked nice and shiny as we rocked up late on Fri night - it looked even better on Sat morning when we saw that the pay and display machine was not working!!! My student recollections of car-parking in N. Wales was that it was horrendously expensive; we'll have to see how this pans out.

Lliewdd from the car-park.

Waking on sat morning it was a bit greyer than we had hoped, however it was still a decent morning and we had our first decision; what to do :-). Our original thought was a long day in the hills with a walk down a minor road before heading up into a cwm to do a 4 pitch V.Diff route before continuing over a couple of summits and dropping to the car. With me feeling far from 100% (although I am a fair bit better), and a slightly iffy day we elected on a slightly gentler day. Fortunately an obvious solution was at had - The Idwal Slabs. 

The Idwal Slabs are in Cwm Idwal - a gentle 30 min walk from the car-park and with several classic routes at very amenable grades. In my past life I'd done a couple of the routes on the Slab, and very nice they were too. When we got there we decided upon Ordinary Route (Diff) for Claire's first ever multi-pitch route, and I set off up the first pitch. The pitch was absolutely lovely, it was polished but not ridiculously so, and the protection was bombproof. I could have used a lot more, however I didn't want to disrupt the flow of the climbing too much. Claire, despite climbing with a rucksack, came up very stylishly (no knees I think!!) and I was soon on my way up p2. Now, a lot of the ground of the slabs is very samey and very open, and I think I wandered off-route a little bit before setting up a belay. The climbing was certainly at the correct grade; however I don't think I belayed at the correct place...whatever.

The last pitch was a little different - I elected to take a more direct line, which led to one reachy move that was at least a grade harder than what had gone before it. The plus sides of this were that I was able to belay to two giant boulders on top and wait for Claire - who promptly pathed the route - very well done Claire...

The view from the Lunching Stone was lovely - but there was a definite bite to the air..so we set off on the exposed scramble upwards to pick up the easy way off...at the top of the scramble there are some fixed slings for an abseil down a polished groove - you could down climb it but the penalty for a slip is severe and it was also good to get some abseiling practice in as well!!

All in all  - a lovely day - followed by a superb view of the hills from the Capel Curig car-park, where we parked before a serious gear fix at the shop!!