Sadly Tryfan and nearby Glyder Fach have been in the news again for all the wrong reasons.
I know a few folk who find the summit of Tryfan a “bogey” for SOTA.
I’ll be making an ascent in the Spring again at some point. Doing my best to find a half decent day.
I’ve taken a few folk with me over the years who were concerned about finding the easiest and safest route up and down.
If anyone is interested in accompanying me please PM or answer here.
Note this is not a formal guiding service, but I do have a track record of getting nervous walkers to the summit and back and I like to help people past this particular obstacle.
I have been on Tryfan many times. The walking routes from either end of the ridge are impressive but safe in summer conditions - if you stick to them. In winter you get all the usual problems with snow and ice, not to mention grease and verglas. One problem is that people sometimes try and descend the gullies, but that is strictly rock climbers territory and can lead to disaster…
The route from the parking area by the lake follows the skyline in the first picture, though many people prefer to go up by the other end of the ridge, out of sight in that image, because though it is further there is less scrambling. The guy in the last picture appears to be on one of the old climbing routes.
I remember some fifty-odd years ago the SMC (Scottish Mountaineering Club) organised a meet in North Wales. They went home professing to be unimpressed (of course!) but were heard to say that they wished they could take Tryfan home with them!
In 2018 I’d nearly completed all the Sota summits in Wales but Tryfan was worrying me. I mentioned it to Gerald and he said “No problem, I’ll get you up there safely so that’ll be another one ticked off”. My report below describes the day. Thanks Gerald @MW0WML
There is some exposure and scrambling involved. I think the main problem though is people following a wrong route which starts off looking easier than the correct route and then gets steadily worse. There is a natural reluctance to turn back and some people then find themselves in an ever deteriorating position requiring increasing levels of technical skill (and head for exposure).
There is a dangerous step between Adam and Eve with some serious exposure.
The North face of Tryfan and Heather Terrace are attractive scrambles if you have the skills to follow the route. If you loose you way it is easy to get yourself into trouble. There is a much safer route up Tryfan from Ogwen Cottage via Llyn Bochlwyd, but even this requires you to use your hands. Tryfan is often followed by a grade 1 scramble up Bristly Ridge to the Glyders to make a circular walk around Lynn Idwal. Tryfan is a serious mountain.
Putting this into perspective. Tryfan is easily accessible from major conurbations in the NorthWest and the Midlands and attracts a lot of visitors each year. 29,540 were killed or seriously injured on the roads in the UK in 2024. Sitting on the sofa, watch television with a drink in your hand is potentially fatal.
Tryfan deserves respects. Every incident is a tragedy but we need to understand and assess the risk.
Gerald’s offer is very generous and certainly worth considering.
The vast majority of people get into trouble on the North Ridge which is not the easiest route to the summit and not the one I take with slightly nervous SOTA operators.
The North Ridge is actually a fairly easy Grade 1 scramble if you stick to the right route. The problem is that sometimes the right route doesn’t look like the actual easiest route. This results in people ending up in some very precarious locations.
Also, the most exposed section of the correct route is right near the top, just below the North Summit.
As a result a fair proportion of people turn around and start down from nearly the top.
It’s much harder to navigate down the North Ridge. People often end up heading down onto the very steep ground above Milestone Butress and get stuck… or worse.
Personally I love the route. But then again I’ve done it dozens of times.
I choose to avoid it for Activations with other people who are just after reaching the summit the easiest way. For that I go to Bwlch Tryfan and follow the South Ridge to the summit.
Done the Adam and Eve leap (both ways) many times. It’s very simple, it’s barely more than a long step… but there’s a yawning drop on one side, which commands a lot of respect!
Of course you can claim the summit just by placing a hand on top… no need to climb onto either block.
The AZ is of course much larger. Although it’s not huge.
I agree, an easily accessible scramble with exposure and the potential to find yourself on an awkward position with exposure. Couple that with it’s fame and accessibility - it is not often the car park isn’t full by 7-8am…
And there are not many other examples in England and Wales. However, there are many in Scotland; Anoach Eagach, Liathach, Forcan Ridge, Cullins come to mind, where real care has to be taken to ensure the right route to avoid excessive exposure or ending up cragfast.
Tryfan was always my favourite. Many times I would be on a climbing meet in North Wales with a wish list of climbs, scrambles and hill walks, but Saturday lunchtime would find me yet again on the summit of Tryfan! The North Ridge route is well marked with cairns, the change in colour of the rocks after the passage of many boots, and for those who recognise them, myriads of little crampon scratches. In terms of difficulty there is much putting hands to rock for support on steps but nothing involving sustained sequences of climbing moves. In my opinion Crib Goch is a lot harder though still only an easy scramble - but as it isn’t a SOTA summit many activators will ignore it. I would perhaps have recommended following the crocodile of people going up the routes on Tryfan, but there are people who deviate from the route in search of difficulty or views, so perhaps not!
A couple of sustained scrambles that I love are the Parson’s Nose Arete (Clogwyn y Person on Snowdon) and the Senior’s Ridge to Glyder Fawr. Unfortunately I’m now too old, but they would make superb approaches to activations!
My father (75) regularly climbs as hard now than when I was in my 20’s (E5/E6 F7a(+)) .
Route selection and time allowance are the key , so I am sure you could do it.
Idwal Slabs followed by Holly Tree Wall and then onto Continuation Wall and then Seniors Ridge for possibly one of the best activation approaches in Wales.
I don’t know Tryfan as intimately as Gerald does, but I did climb it once and activated on 2m after doing the Glyders in July 2017. I cannot remember any difficulty getting to the summit and if I did use my hands or scramble it was minimal. I did climb on top of one of the Adam and Eve stones. That was the easy part. I was too scared to jump across. No shame in that, after a hard days walk, tiredness, it would have been a stupid risk to take so I got down the way I climbed up. I cannot recall now if it was the left or the right stone as pictured that I topped. This was my route down which I found to be slightly easier than the route I took going up.
Like other’s Tryfan has always been my favourite summit - always the North Face well clear of the Milestone Butrress. I use to climb it regularly as a teenager, but having the Lake District on the door step while at University and then moving to Cambridge in the late 90s, I had a sabbatical from climbing in Snowdonia for well over 30 years. When I started doing SOTA back in 2021, I did all the big summits in GW/NW - all apart from Tryfan. I was 50, not so slim any more and certainly less fit than in 1988. Luckily my brother-in-law is a ML and he persuaded me to go up. It all came flooding back; and despite having both my superior-canals removed in 2015, I managed to climb to the tip of the Cannon stone on the way up. The view up and down the Ogwyn valley on a sunny day is truly spectacular from the Cannon stone - which seems somewhat easier on the way up than on the way back down.
Some years later, I was travelling home along the Ogwyn valley on the Tuesday after a long bank holiday weekend, with absolute no intention of doing any more SOTA activations when I passed the car park below the North ridge of Tryfan. It was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, the car park was completely empty and there was no one around. Before I knew it I was on my way up; this time with a backpack full of radio gear. I never encountered a sole on the way up and when I finally got to the top, over all those false summits, it was empty too. For anyone that has never summited Tryfan, I think it’s best to describe the summit as not very SOTA friendly. It is basically just a pile of massive unstable boulders, some which have a tendency to shift when one stands on them. Nevertheless, I was the only one up there, and despite the less than friendly landscape, I decided this was a great opportunity to try and do HF from my favourite summit. The only issue was I only had an inverted V in my rucksack, so spent a good 20 minutes hopping from unstable rock to unstable rock trying to untangle the antenna wire from the rocks to get the antenna up. I eventually did and here’s picture of it with the Bristly Ridge and Glyders behind.
Eventually however, people started to arrive on summit and so, in the interest of safety I took the HF down and asked a fellow climber to take this not so flattering photograph of yours truly next to Adam and Eve:
From that day on I now always carry the Super Antenna in the car in case I get another unique opportunity to climb. From my experience an inverted V is not recommended. Here’s my favourite picture of Tryfan, taken from the ridge up the back of Pen yr Ole Wen.
Alas at 84 I have a grumbling knee and Menieres has screwed up my balance so I have gracefully retired to enjoy my memories. A few more years and I will no doubt start tutting at the antics of the current generation of Tigers!
The last time I did Seniors Ridge I soloed up the ordinary route on the slabs and then up the extreme left edge of Holly Tree Wall, as an afternoon diversion after a morning climbing, while my second headed to the pub!
Tryfan isn’t a nice summit at all, but when you see what people wear when climbing the beast, you sometimes understand why mountain rescue is called out.
I’ve climbed Tryfan quite a few times, in double figures now for SOTA, and keeping fit for my hiking and personal goals, doing quite a few different routes up, a couple with ropes. But the best memory I have, is guiding little Lyra up the north scrambling path on my back, with quite a few folk staring at me, hahaa - good times!
. A very enjoyable day thank you.
