95% cloudless blue sky all day

For me, THE highlight of 2014 (even better than the glorious April day climbing the best mountain I have ever climbed with Northern England mountaineer, Nigel):

This Weller-Willson winter expedition to Aran Fawddwy was long in the coming but it was a perfect snowy day when it was finally accomplished - on Sunday 28 December 2014.  Also, I am sure, the first time I had been out on my own with just the two of them.

The three of us had a hard, circular walk from Llanymawddwy in the beautiful upper Dyfi valley.  It was made even harder for Tim who trail blazed through the often deep snow all day.  He was wearing a very snazzy black and brown skin layer of string on the front and two other clever materials on back, arms and armpits.  On top, a modern yellow, full zip, slinky top with hood.  To my relief, we chose not to do my suggestion of the straight on, steep rocky and vegetated rib directly above the sharp corner where we left the road for the gate and path.  As it was, we ended in the dark, as we were expecting and, for that reason also chose not to do my other initial suggestion of the final steep hill above Llanymawddwy.  That would have involved, in the light of our head torches, edging round by the forest fence above a steep drop.

On the summit, there was a gentle breeze.  With temperatures already below freezing, it felt even colder so we did not stop around too long.  However, long enough to take in the magnificent views all round.  We saw all the great mountain ranges of Snowdonia thirty miles away - the Carneddau, the Glyderau and the Snowdon massif, itself.  All of them seemed so small and insignificant.  There was a cloud inversion that meant that Bala and Llyn Tegid were both smothered in a lake of cloud.  In places, slightly higher prominences pushed through to make for small islands of land in the sea of cloud.

I think the snow had come two days earlier on Boxing Day, with probably more on the following day, Saturday.  Some of the fences were honeycombed in rime and Tim and Becky sword fought with icicles of ice from the wire.  In other places, grass sticking through the snow was so encased in icy snow that they looked like meerkats standing upright and staring out over the white wilderness.  Going up the first snowy 600m hill there was a huge field of white bumps that looked quite remarkable.  It was the cushion moss that is so common in upland areas; it makes for such a comfortable seat on a warm summer's day.  Tim gave us the footholds in the deep soft snow for me to put my own and then Becky, in the rear, in a perfect, trio line up, marching on.

We got back to the car after more than seven hours of hard walking and climbing.  I foolishly started driving through an enlarging slit of visibility in the windscreen.  Four miles down the road, the Red Lion in Dinas Mawddwy was more packed than I had ever seen it.  So crowded, that we got nowhere near the woodworm eaten table or the shire horse brasses and certainly not the blazing log fire.  Long drinks quenched our thirst before the two hour drive home.