One of the traditional HUMS club trips is North Wales sometime in November. We've been lucky with the weather for the last few years and managed to get out and have some top days even if they have been marred by hangovers and the odd epic.
This year we booked into the BRMC hut near Tremadog which is a cracking little hut - comfy dorms, cosy living room, good kitchen area and right underneath the cliffs of Tremadog (for those of a climbing bent) and opposite the legendary Eric's Café (for those of a Full English breakfast bent).
The forecast wasn't great, evidenced by the fact the MWIS printout in my jacket pocket got soaked on the short walk across the uni campus to collect the van. After eating lots of fish and chips, we headed off, encountering short sharp hailstorms most of the way down the A55, eventually the weather clearing the nearer we got to Porthmadog. Top tunes on the way down provided by DJ Ezioo
The usual Friday night party kicked off until the wee hours with much cheese, alcohol, chatter and logs on the fire. I drifted off to sleep with the sound of French Paul shouting "yeah!" repeatedly.
Saturday
I was first up, seemingly the only person to set an alarm, shortly joined by Adam and Ben. The traditional wake up call of banging the largest pan you can find with the largest ladle you can find over the head of the sleepiest, most hungover student you can find was duly enacted and people emerged from their cocoons, not as beautiful butterflies but bleary eyed students in search of coffee.
Our group headed out for a walk up Cnicht in the wind and rain that started as soon as we got out of the bus. It's a steady plod up the ridgeline from Croesor but with great views out over the bay and down into Cwm Croesor. It wasn't long before we were in the cloud, pretty wet and being blown around.
We descended the summit and contoured around towards Moelwyn Mawr but waterfalls were blowing uphill and people (self included) were getting a bit cold and damp so we elected to head back down to the car. 7 miles and one mountain in all.
We got back to the hut to find that Margaret and Katie had bought many logs and had the fire on. We dried off and then Paul and I drove to the beach for a blow through.
We stuck around in the van listening to Pink Floyd and hoping for a cool sunset but it was not to be. Back to hut, cook curry and enjoy the rest of the cheeseboard, mince pies and Adam's birthday cake.
Sunday
Tired heads got a lie in this morning before the wake up gongs were sounded and we decided to have a later start.
The weather forecast had improved in terms of rain but got worse in terms of wind so we elected to do a walk from the hut, heading up towards Moel-ddu ("Black Hill"). The paths in this area are not well trodden and some were non-existent despite their marking on the 1:25k OS map. We did some bushwhacking through brambles and bracken for half an hour to get to a point on the road we could have reached in 10 minutes had we stuck to the tarmac!
Progress was better after that, just battling the headwind and omnipresent bog to the just below the summit where we stopped in the lee of a boulder for a snack and a break from the wind. The summit was so windy we had to crawl to it, see the below video!
We headed on back down, picking up better paths than we did on the way up and arraived back to the hut just as the light was fading. We tidied up the hut, unstuck the minibus that Adam had parked in a ditch, and then drove over to Llanberis to collect Eizoo so he could have a front seat on the way home after he was travel sick all over the inside of Nick's car - oops. Classic tunes in the bus on the way back including an American Pie sing-a-long, Bruce Springsteen, Deep Purple.
Eventually made it back home at around 10:30pm via the kebab shop for tea. Collapsed into bed after another cracking club trip.
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