This was perhaps our last opportunity to get in some climbing practice before Kilimanjaro, so we wanted to make the most of it. On Saturday Luke Brooks, a local mountain guide, lead us up Tryfan North Ridge.
Tryfan turned out to be an exhilerating rocky scramble, technical in parts, requiring hands as well as feet.
At one point I found myself clinging onto an almost vertical rock face, with my right toe jammed into a two inch groove, left boot balanced on a narrow ledge level with my hip and arms outstretched above my head fingers gripping, white knuckled, onto natural hand holds in the rock. With a rocky drop direcly below I felt very vulnerable and was cursing myself for requesting a challenge. The guide said "now just do a big squat upwards" WHAT?! Did he realise that until only 6 months ago I was a middle aged couch potato who had climbed nothing more difficult that a flight of stairs? After a few deep breaths I summoned all my strength and pushed down as hard as I could with my left thigh at the same time as pulling up with my arms....incredibly it worked (I really should have more faith in myself!). With my left leg now straight the next movement required me to swing my right thigh over a ledge above waist height, it was an enormous seam splitting stretch, I used my arms to haul myself up onto the ledge with all the elegance of an Ox.
Tryfan - The Cannon: Lisa, Justin, Luke Brooks (mountain guide), me.
When we reached 'The Cannon' it started to rain and the wind picked up.
We carried on, reaching the summit with relief after an exhilerating three hour climb.
The summit. Wow! What a sense of achievement.
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