Despite it being something like a 5 hour drive from here, I was also keen. Despite the nation whining incessantly about the “bad” weather, I for one was loving it. Conditions like this a pretty rare thing in much of England and getting out on the hills is even more fun than usual in the snow.

Chatting with Dave about the idea, I found he was less convinced about the driving part but still keen to get out and about in the hills. Remembering the slightly shorter drive but gorgeous scenery during our stay at Graig Wen last October, a plan started to form…

With Jen and Mark also in, we booked up the Mountain View holiday cottage at Graig Wen, and started looking forward to the weekend.

How, given the aforementioned hysterics the country’s been having over the weather, it was not surprising to find that most people thought we were a bit mad to head to Wales. Given that the whole holiday idea was largely spurred by Anna, it was a little surprising that she was a proponent of the you’re-not-going-to-get-there-you’re-going-to-break-down-and-die-on-the-road theory. Other backers of this belief were my mother (“I think you’d better cancel, don’t you?”), my father (“you’re sure that’s a good idea?”), and my boss (“you’re mad”).

The beauty of mass-panic, however, is that the roads were utterly devoid of traffic so we had a great run through, making it just in time for a couple of pints and dinner at the George III Hotel in Penmaenpool. Tasty Snowdonia ale and some great hearty food. A few glasses of whisky at the cottage then off to bed.

Possibly due to the whisky, it was a slightly slow start in the morning, and it was around 11 o’clock when we finally set off towards our objective for the day; Cadair Idris. The largest mountain in the region, Anna and I had walked up Cadair via the pony path on our last visit, traversing the ridge east to Gau Graig and then down. Because we wanted to do the ridge, we’d missed out on the Fox’s path; a steep scree-slope ascent of the mountain from Llyn y Gadair; the lake in the bowl to the north of the peak.

We trekked up the path to the lake, marvelling at the snow; it was not packed at all as in the lakes, but a fine powder up to about knee-depth in places. After some lunch near the lake, and some ice axe arrest practice, we set off up the Fox’s path. Or at least roughly up the Fox’s path. We were pretty much the only other walkers out, and had to forge our own path up the slope. Hard work, according to Mark; I wasn’t convinced though, as I had nice footsteps to follow . As we walked, we spotted others on the mountain, enjoying the winter conditions to climb the central gully, which we later heard was a bit “interesting”.

The snow varied in density, but was good-going for the first half of the slope. A thinning of the snow layer forced us to change course a couple of times, and probably took us off what is the path in summer, but we continued on and slowly but surely we made progress. After another path petered out with a thinning of snow, I broke out from lower down than Mark and took the lead on a new trail.

About a hundred metres from the top, the snow gave way to an icy crust. This made kicking steps a lot more effort, and progress slowed, with everyone being careful not to slip. Eventually, after a bit of back-and-forth and a couple of us wearing crampons the whole team made it to the top happy and safe. Conditions were windy on top, so we didn’t hang about, strolling up the final leg to the trig-point and rapidly continuing on. Underfoot, though, it was not too icy or deep and the going was good, and we found ourselves smoothly heading for the pony path and the car, a delightful sunset en route a beautiful finish to the day.

The Sunday was spent on a nice walk up past the Arthog waterfalls – sadly not iced up much – and Gregennen lakes – about 3-inch crust of ice – with a good cup of tea and a scone in a Dolgellau tea room to finish; cream first obviously!

Check out the photo album for more pics.