Back in March, my friend Jon and I headed out on one of my all time favourite weekend adventures.

Both being busy bees we only had one available weekend for the opportunity to go adventuring together, so we had a weekend pencilled in our diaries for a few months, and thankfully we were blessed by the weather.

For a random weekend in mid-March, it seemed a lot like summer!

After enjoying my trip with Jon up Helvellyn via Striding and Swirral edge in the Lake District so much in summer 2024 (read my blog post on this here), the plan was to get the hiking boots on and complete a couple of Grade One Scrambles in North Wales.

The BMC defines a grade one as follows; “All scrambling grades require a degree of rock climbing as both hands and feet are employed, but a classic grade 1 scramble is essentially an exposed walking route.“

I’ve been looking to do some scrambles to expand my hillwalking experience and confidence, and to also challenge myself a little harder. It’s also great to enrich my logbook whilst enjoying a new style of adventure. I felt super confident going with Jon, who not only is my long-term hiking buddy but he also has qualifications to his name: Jon has his Summer Mountain Leader award and is working towards his MCI — so I really couldn’t really have had anyone better to adventure confidently with. So when the weather said we were good to go, we were excited to get off the mark.

As soon as I finished work on Friday, Jon drove us to Gwern Gof Uchaf campsite and bunkhouse, which is an ideal little campsite that sits in the Ogwen Valley below Tryfan.

After pitching up the tent in the dark, we were so excited to wake to clear mountain views around us as we unzipped the tent.

Tryfan

The first scramble of the day was up Tryfan via North Ridge.

We were spoilt for views!

Glyder Fach

From Tryfan, we headed up to Glyder Fach via Bristley Ridge.

I was out of my comfort zone A LOT during the vertical scramble up Bristly ridge, which has a section quite rightly nicknamed ‘Sinister gully’, but the journey reminded me that I’m a lot more capable than what I sometimes think and I’m really proud to have completed this route.

We were treated to some incredible views at Glyder Fach, for once in Snowdonia, we could see for miles.

We had beautiful sunshine and incredible views over Eryri/Snowdonia. Until this trip, I don’t think I’d ever been able to see Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in the distance and not in cloud before!

From the campsite, this was a 12km route with over 869 meters of elevation gained.

My quad muscles were super sore after all of the big steps to get up this route, and also from the steep descent back to the campsite. The stretching and the very long hot shower sadly did not do much to aid this. My legs were sore for quite some time after this adventure! No pain, no gain ey?

Moel Sibod

The next day we conquered Moel Sibod.

We had planned to do the Snowdon Horseshoe but after looking at bus times, already being achy, we decided to plan an alternative route as it would’ve been too big of a day sadly.

We started the day with a swim in Quarry Pit Pool, the second lake you pass following the trail to the base of the mountain. This was a gorgeous swim. The water was super clear and still and was a lovely cooling stop from the hill before the final push up the scramble.

We then enjoyed the relaxed scramble up, soaking up the sunshine.

Overall, it was a 10km hike. We started in Capel Curig and followed the trail beside the base of the mountain taking in not one, not two, but three beautiful lakes. We then scrambled up Daear Ddu Ridge and back down the front face of the mountain.

Honestly, one of the best weekends of the year so far. This was an epic trip filled with lots of giggles, catching up, and incredible mountain views.

This trip ticked off three grade 1 scrambles, granting me with two QMD’s for the log book…. when I get round to logging it!

Thanks to Jon for being an awesome adventure buddy.