Tryfan and Bristly Ridge

18/03/2023

A couple of us decided to go and take on Tryfan and Bristly Ridge for the first hike of me turning 34. Had a birthday weekend in Wales with some of my favourite people, Obviously drank far far far too much and then decided to still go and do this hike the following day. I can say that was one very interesting day!

The day started off with myself trying to get ready while hung over and heading over to Morrisons to meet everyone for some food. I felt like death by this point. But I am hard core and an experienced hiker, so I got myself together and headed to Tryfan.

The best Photo of the day! This was the slippiest rock I have ever tried to climb

The day started well, the weather was good, bit hungover but getting out helped. The first bit going up before the scramble starts, is definitely a hard part of the hike but it is worth it just to get to the main reason of completing Tryfan…The scramble! The scrambles are unbelievable, I get when people say Tryfan is their favourite mountain. The scramble is not for the faint hearted though, you need to be prepared for this scramble. The group I was with are all used to scrambling and this took it out of us. Tryfan is such an interesting mountain to climb, there is so much to see and different ways to scramble up it. Tryfan is an interesting scramble, it has so many hand and foot holds for you to move up quickly. There isn’t just the one way to go, there are many different routes you could take up here scramble and none scramble.

The views from the top are so beautiful to see, Along with Adam and Eve rocks to climb ( On a dry day ). We didn’t even attempt these as they were far from dry or safe to climb. The hike back down though to get over to Bristly Ridge, is definitely not a fun one. It is steep and tiring and really just takes it out of you. It is a long slog and if you are heading over to Bristly Ridge, you don’t even go to the bottom of Tryfan. It does turn into a path though half way down, which does help speed up the time to get down and take pressure off your knees. The path doesn’t reach you until you are turning off for Bristly Ridge though, so we didn’t get to enjoy that!

Bristly Ridge is another ball game on its own. When you have already done Tryfan, Bristly Ridge is very tiring. There are two ways to go up Bristly Ridge, either up the scramble which is much harder than Tryfan or up the scree on the left hand side. We probably should of taken the scree, but we came for the scramble I found it to be a very deceiving mountain, I don’t freeze often at all, but I froze twice on this mountain, mainly due to thinking there were drops underneath me, when there actually wasn’t. Sometimes looking back is a smart thing to do to help keep you grounded and know the distance between you and a drop. We managed to get 100 meters off the top before the weather changed for the worst and a storm came in. We found ourselves having to turn back and head back down Bristly Ridge which is much harder to do, but was much safer to do than to carry on in the storm that was coming at us quickly. It got dark, cold and very very wet before we had even got off Bristly Ridge, we had to find a new route down which involved having to hike down loose rocks and stones in torrential rain while the storm is getting worse, the rocks were getting more wet and we were soaked inside and out. It is not a fun thing to be doing. We all hit a panic mode at some point on our way down. 2 other groups had the same idea as us and tried to get off as quick as possible. We thought we may have to ring mountain rescue at one point, luckily we didn’t and everyone was safe. That was the scariest part of any hike I have ever done. It reminded me how quickly the weather can change and how dangerous things can get.

Always remember if you need help mountain rescue are there to help!

It took us a few hours, but we managed to get back off the mountains and headed down the path I mentioned earlier back to the car. Trying to get changed in the car from soaking wet clothes that are stuck to you into something dry was not an easy task. It took me getting into dry clothes, having a thick coat on while sat in the pub next to a radiator, having hot food, having the heating on in the car the whole way home and having a hot shower, then sitting there with a hot water bottle to get my body warm again!

It was a long day but it was a good day looking back. Even though the weather changed and everyone got a little worried, it was still a good day.

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