Y Gribin on Glyder Fawr, in the Ogwen valley

Last weekend my sister came up to stay with us in Snowdonia.  The requirement for Sunday was a good mountain walk with a tiny bit of scrambling.  As I'm trying to convince her to start climbing I thought it would be a good introduction to get on a grade one scramble, and to prepare for some of the more exciting longer walks you can do both in the UK and the Alps.  It couldn't have too much exposure and not be too long either, so I was 'very good' and put thoughts of Tryfan behind me and opted for Y Gribin in the Glyders instead.

Misty views across Llyn Idwal.  The Y Gribin scramble path starts by the stone wall on the left.

The forecast was for sun from 11am onwards, light winds and no precipitation.  We had a leisurely start and left Ogwen cottage at around 10am.  A nice stroll up to Llyn Idwal until the first dry stone wall, where you follow this up to the start of the ridge between Idwal and Bochlwyd.

The view across to Tryfan from the start of the Y Gribin ridge

The initial section of the ascent until the 'football field' is steady, on a good path with excellent views.

The view from the 'football field' to the main part of the ridge scramble

From the 'field' the path continues up through the rocks and onto the main ridge of Y Gribin.  Here you can either remain on the 'true' ridge or continue on the right hand side joining the ridge later on and avoiding the majority of the exposure - although the route finding is trickier here.

My sister on the scramble

It seems as soon as the good scrambling starts it ends.  The route is short but great fun, and takes you right to the top of the Glyderau 'plateau' from where we turned west to Glyder Fawr at 1000.8m high (or 999m on the map as it was resurveyed in 2010).

On top of the Glyderau 'plateau'

Glyder Fawr is the fifth highest mountain in Wales, and Glyder is supposed to mean 'heap of stones' from the Welsh, gludair, and Glyder Fawr is translated as 'big heap'

The view from the summit across to sunny Llanberis

By the time we had reached the top the sun was coming out and the mist was clearing in waves.  We sheltered across the back of the summit from the icy light breeze for a lunch break and then headed down the screes to the devil's kitchen descent path.

Autumnal colours on Y Garn

It was a short sharp walk back down to the lake, and we descended to the bottom of the Idwal Slabs before  returning around the other side of the cwm back to the road.

The Y Gribin ridge with Tryfan behind

To summarise it was a super day out in the mountains, atmostpheric misty views, relatively quiet on the scramble and a pleasant cool temperature, requiring only an icebreaker t-shirt and my incredible Haglofs Boa 'active' softshell for the majority of the day.

Pen Y Ole Wen reflected in the sill water at the end of the day