Going up Sat – North Ridge up then up Bristly Ridge onto Glyder Fach and coming down Y Gribin Ridge – anyone come down that? On foot this is BTW 😉

Yes, done in summer and winter, all easy going, you can scramble the crest or just walk down the path to the side on Y Gribin.

Y Gribin ridge is allegedly a grade 1 scramble but all the hard bits can easily be avoided
Basically it’s easy unless your in thick clag

Pics of the Cneifion Arete are full of bods on ropes so that’s a no-no.
Any other good way down other than Devil’s Kitchen?

Cheers

Cneifion is grade 3S scramble for a good reason, deffo not a sensible descent route
Y Gribin is really just a walk if you stick to the path not the crest
Devil’s Kitchen is very sanitised and is really just a slippy set of irregular steps

An alternative is to drop left/east from top of Bristly Ridge down the steep path (north) to drop to the col south of Tryfan, then you have many paths back down to Nant Ffrancon pass

That was my first ever hill walk 20 odd years ago and still one of my best hill days

Fantastic day out, probably the best scramble mountain route in Wales. Done it many times in all seasons and conditions. You’ll almost certainly never find the top of the Cneifion arete anyway and it’s a serious route, so forget that idea.
You might struggle to locate the top to Y Gribin descent if weather is really poor, then just continue to devil staircase descent which is more obvious.
next step up would be dif climb on ordinary route on Idwal slabs, continue up Cneifion arete and Y Gribin ridge.

There is a little used alt. to north ridge called Little Gully, off the heather terrace. Is dead quiet but about the same standard I.e easy and enjoyable. Follow the terrace passing gullies until you pass main gully with its big chock stone. You walk between the buttress and a large block on your left then immediate look right to spot little gully ( crampon marks). Climb until you reach the open amphitheater above main gully chock stone. Walk up to the back turn left and follow the obvious path over more easy little walls around the top of main buttress until you see the summit just above. Turn right to take an easy ramp up to Adam and Eve. It’s all more obvious than it sounds here.

Bristly ridge is really nice. From the col Behind tryfan, follow drystone wall staying in its right until you meet some steep rock walls and you’ll see a stile over the drystone wall. Pop over and look right to find the bottom of Sinister Gully. It looks steep and greasy but is a good staircase of holds. Climb this to gain the ridge. Continue to the plateau and visit the cantilever stone.

Y gribins top is easily missed in mist as you go around the castle of the winds. If you miss it, head for glider fach and down devils kitchen and idwal which is really scenic

I did the route you’re on about in snow / ice a few years back, and it was only a bit hairy because of that, rather than the terrain itself. If you’re a reasonably competent mountaineer with decent footwear you should be fine.

It’s a great route – enjoy!

why not add Y Garn to your day

If the weather craps out then Devil’s Kitchen is an easy path down.

DOUG ON DEVIL’S KITCHEN by brf, on Flickr

I know it’s not very helpful, but you could always try the downhill dash – records an astonishing 8 mins summit to road.
http://www.wrecsamtri.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=657

Here you go (Little Gully):

Sinister gully and Bristly ridge. Cracking place to walk/climb.

Tryfan is my all-time favourite mountain. Somewhere on the Ogwen side we stumbled across a pretty big cave many years ago but I couldn’t tell you where it was. When you reach the summit you’ve got to jump from Adam to Eve (or the other way) as it’s a tradition. Watch out for the wild goats on the Heather Terrace side.

Good info buzz_lightyear.

I saw that route in the Scrambles of Snowdonia book, but I’m wary of stumbling onto more technical ground, as it is surrounded with grade 3 scrambles.

That looks fun, buzz_lightyear!

I realise I gave some crap advice here… This bit is wrong…

From the col Behind tryfan, follow drystone wall staying in its right until you meet some steep rock walls and you’ll see a stile over the drystone wall. Pop over and look right to find the bottom of Sinister Gully.

I know this because in wasted half an hour wandering about the bottom of the crag looking for sinister gully yesterday!

Don’t go left over the high stile. If you look up the line of the wall, you’ll see one more bit of wall up high above the final stile. You can get up to it by scrambling up the gully to the right of the stile, or by walking up the screes well off to the right and picking up a thin path that doubles back left to the wall fragment. When you step up past this fragment of wall, sinister gully is immediately on your right. Confusingly, the little path continues further to the left side of the crag where there are several more awkward gullies. I saw one other party backing nervously down one of them.

Sorry

My fave mountain too. First climbed it aged 9 with my dad in 1972 when he was still in the MAM, so we went up from the Glandenna hut on the Ogwen side. I still treasure that day.