This year, in a break from tradition, Peterborough Powerhouse chose North Wales as the setting for it's annual walk. The first weekend in October saw twenty five members descend on Betsw-y-coed, with the intention of trekking up some of Snowdonia's finest peaks. Several people were brave (or daft) enough to camp, whilst the vast majority were only too happy to enjoy the hospitality afforded by the Swallow Falls Hotel. The Sunday morning saw plenty of bleary eyes at the breakfast table, especially from the happy campers who had been partying all night with 250 heavy metal fans next door. Mick Christie and Kev Lester were taking two groups to tackle Y Garn from various angles whilst my merry men were taking on one of north Wales's top routes, Tyrfan's north ridge, (cue dramatic music).

We were at our start point at the foot of Tryfan on the A5 by 10 o'clock. Geared up and ready to go. My group consisted of Lee Hanton, Bill Scales, Mac Mackinnon, Simon Gilbey, Sid Eastol and myself, Dave Barsby, navigating, hopefully. Anybody who has climbed Tryfan and I mean climbed, will know that it really is straight into it from the start. From the roadside to the summit it's only three quarters of a mile but it's 3000 feet of scrambling, (mild rock climbing) and a real lung burster. We were only 20 minutes into our ascent when Sid was unfortunately unable to continue. We were all finding it hard work but he was suffering terrifically with his asthma and made the wise decision to go for a low level walk instead. No sooner had Sid departed than the real climbing started. It was hands on for the next hour and a half, broken only by Bill Scales climbing a rock finger called the cannon. As if to emphasise the danger, a seaking helicopter shadowed us all the way to the top. There is a terrific amount of exposure at times and Lee Hanton excelled himself in reaching the summit of his first big hill.

We had a short break on the summit before descending the south ridge and heading off to the Glyders. Our intention was to climb bristly ridge another of north Wales's superb routes. Unfortunately the weather needs to be virtually perfect as it involves a climb up a steep gully to gain the start of the ridge and the recent rain made it too greasy and dangerous to attempt.

Not to be outdone, we scrambled up the loose scree to the left hand side slipping and sliding, but managed to gain the main Glyder ridge that way. We had lunch on Glyder Fach before climbing the improbable feature that is Castll y ghent (castle of the winds) and eventually reaching our second 3000 foot peak of the day, Glyder Fawr. If time and weather permitted we had hoped to climb Y garn but both were against us so there now followed a somewhat slippery descent of Twll Dhu (devil's kitchen). After much farcical antics which at one point resulted in myself doing the splits on a large boulder, thank goodness for the stretchiness of lycra tracksters that's all I can say, we arrived at the lake of Llynn Idwal. We traversed right around the lake, jumping a stream, which was now a waterfall due to the prevailing weather conditions and force marched back to Ogwen cottage on the A5. We were just in time to see Kev Lester's group hop in their cars to head back to the hotel before we decided to jog the one mile back up the A5 to our start point, boots squelching, legs heavy and lungs bursting.

Never has a beer and hot food been so welcome as it was that night. We had had a fantastic day, full of thrills and challenges, tested ourselves once more and came back smiling if somewhat exhausted. Now all that awaited us happy campers, was to trek up a steep, wet hillside to the tents and survive the fury of a welsh storm battering our tents all night. Marvellous!