Crib Goch? Na, done it about 20 times. Bristly Ridge? Ditto. So
what's next? Want to push it a bit further, great scrambling on good
rock, miss the crowds on the Horseshoe? You'll be wanting the Clogwyn
y Person arete then you will.
So what is it? A grade 2 or 3 scramble depending on the
exact route you choose which takes you from the relatively remote Cwm
Glas on the north side of Snowdon onto Crib y Ddysgl, the broad ridge
which is a continuation of Crib Goch and, eventually up to the cafe,
sorry, summit. It's arguably the best scramble on Snowdon and I'm not
arguing.
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The arete in profiled silhouette
and
looking vaguely sinister
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How hard is it? Depends on who you are and how competent.
Steve Ashton's 'Scrambles in Snowdonia' guidebook has some right
horrors, but this isn't one of them. Grade 2 and 3 scrambles are
definitely more serious than grade 1 stuff like Crib Goch and packing
in a rope and basic rack is a good idea.
Getting to it The easiest way in is to park in the layby
near the Cromlech on the A4086 (near grid ref: 623570) or hitch a
lift, or catch the bus from Llanberis. Cross the river at Blaen y
Nant then work your way up the hill following the path. As you get
higher you'll see the path to upper Cwm Glas weaving up to the left
of the obvious stream.
Follow it up till you emerge pop up into the upper cwm. The arete
is the obvious looking thing to your left with a semi-detached nose
separated from the main ridge by an obvious slanting gully, which
just happens to be one of the two possible starts to the route.
You could also weave a way down from a point on the Pyg Track
above Pen y Pas.
In descent For reasons best know to himself, Ashton reckons
there are no particular difficulties descending the route. We say
bobbins to that, route finding would be decidedly iffy in places and
unless you're a competent climber we'd give it a miss.
Doing It...
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Blocky but steep high on the
crest
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The arete's a pretty obvious chunk of rock at about (GR 616 555),
less flat than the ground around it and dominating the left skyline
when you're in the upper cwm. You get a choice of start, either
directly up the nose, which looks kind of necky and necessitates an
iffy looking down climb into the gully or directly up the gully
itself.
We opted for the latter and it was
a nice, dry, ungully-like sort of
gully with inviting big holds on the right hand wall that suck
you up onto the broad, broken crest of the ridge. If you're an
exposure-hating wimp, you might want to rope up before entering the
gully and move together with the odd runner - not, not Sebastian
Coe.
It's amazingly hard to write route descriptions without resorting
to old turnips like: 'The angle soon eases and positive holds
appear.' Anyway, up on the broken, jumbly broad, but steepish crest
we met some nice folk from Leicester, but they've almost certainly
gone by now. A useful aid to route
finding, people from Leicester, as we could watch them blunder
around then choose the easier option.
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If in doubt about the route, just
follow people
from Leicester
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Once you're up on the ridge proper, you can pick and choose your
lines from a mix of little slabby bits with handy cracks, short,
steepish walls, though always with good handholds and one or two more
challenging options. It tends to move up in steps between flat,
decent-sized ledges and, to be honest, there's not much exposure to
the sides, though there are places where you'd bounce a fair distance
if you took an unrestrained pinger into the blue. The easiest route
is windy and devious, but then it usually is, but you can cutu and
paste the difficulties according to your mood.
Low down it was cold, cool enough to pull on fleece and shell
jacket, but as we emerged blinking into the sun, things warmed up
quickly.
Views are brilliant, or at least they were on Saturday. Over to
the left you can see the masses
picking their way delicatedly along Crib Goch and perhaps one
or two dissidents trawling up the alternative north ridge start. To
the right you look down into Cwm Glas, which is full of, er, boulders
and grass. But perhaps the best views are looking back towards the
Glyders, where you can pick out the full expanse of the ridge from
just abover Capel at the one end to Y Garn and beyond at the other
and, as a bonus, you get an eyefull of the crap, steep stony ascent
from hell up Pen yr Ole Wen as it rears up above the Ogwen Cottage
tea shack (sadly very out of reach).
