Day 22 - 4th July 2007

After a great night in the PYG hotel, we left in heavy rain (forecast looks grim for rest of trip).
From Pen y Pass, we climbed up the 'Red Dot' path through bogs, gulleys, scree and boulder fields in gusting wind and heavy showers to reach the summit of Glyder Fawr (999m).
At the top, we sheltered behind a rock the size of a small house and ate a hasty lunch. With the 40-50mph winds, it was 3 degrees at the top and horizontal rain felt like bee stings!
We abandoned the idea of a crossing of the Glyders and Al said he would take us down the Devils Kitchen and into Cwm Idwal.
What a fantastic afternoon! The Kitchen was everything North Wales should be... Views, exciting paths, tricky sections and plenty of 'stop and think' moments.
With the wet weather, the 700 metre descent took a good while, but every second was great fun - even the bits when our heavy/large packs got snagged when downclimbing sections! Luckily, we left the 40mph winds at Llyn y Cwn at the top of the Kitchen.
We arrived at Idwal Cottage, the oldest youth hostel in the UK at about 4.30pm and after filling the drying room with almost everthing we had with us, we got showered, fed and Al and Pete started working through the extensive list of local bottled ales Idwal have for sale and I fancied a break from the beer and had a rather nice organic white from Spain.

It was quite a late night planning what we are going to do next. Our 3 day crossing of the Carneddau is going to need a rethink in this weather - I am working on a lower level route as a wildcamp on Carnedd Llewelyn would be horrendous! Then again, the sun might shine tomorrow ;)

Maybe not!