Day two starts with bad team news: Although we all lined up for the start in Nant Peris for today’s 5 peaks, just a few minutes after this picture was taken and only a few hundred yards into the walk, both Iain and Andrew had to bail out for the day. Iain’s knee problem having not improved at all overnight, and Andrew suffering the effects of stomach problems, little sleep and not eating for several days, leaving him completely exhausted. They headed back for some rest and recuperation in the hope they’d be able to recover enough to get back on board for tomorrow.
No choice in this situation but for Andy, Jack and I to carry on. The pretty relentless climb up to Elidir Fawr was very hard graft, but the weather was dramatically improved on yesterday, and the reward was a very easy next 2.5 miles round the contour of the upper valley across to Y Garn, then a descent followed by a shortish but very tough climb to the summit of Glyder Fawr. Another mile of trek eastward got us to Glyder Fach, with “mountain goat” Howey straining at the leash and blazing a trail ahead of Jack and I pretty much all day. Immediately after descending from the Glyder Fach peak, the pretty terrifying sight of Tryfan looms ahead – looking for all the world like Mount Doom in Mordor.
Before getting to the start of the Tryfan climb however, was (for me at least) an equally scary descent down a dangerously rocky and unstable scree slope called bristly ridge. As I struggled slowly down, I had my only “wobble” of the entire trip. I felt nervous, and felt that once at the bottom I wouldn’t have enough left in me to attack Tryfan. After regaining some composure at the bottom, I decided to push on, and it proved the right decision as although there was some scrambly climbing at the top, it didn’t feel too bad, and once over the top it was down a very steep gully that eventually levels a bit onto stone steps towards the base.
Back to Llanberis, tonight in time to get a decent meal and a couple of pints before bed by 11pm and dreams of tomorrow’s 7 peaks and 13 miles !
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