Club's Old Farts at the Hut a good day was rounded off with a pint or two in the Tanronnen Hotel.

Saturday saw Anne Berk, Bob Armstrong, Brian & Alistair Monk, Dave Goodey, Jane from St Albans (the one with the pink heart shaped patch on her breeches!) and me attempting a circumnavigation of the Nantlle Ridge.  A good day on the hills was only slightly marred by not listening to Albert's route instructions and having a bad walk off through streams, barbed wire fences and sheepfolds.  Earlier in the day Anne did her best to keep us on route and with some unerring compass work saw us safely up and over Craig Cwm Silin.  After a hurried meal at the Tanronnen we all enjoyed Simon Yates' lecture in the evening.

Fortified by the previous night's alcohol and spurred on by Simon Yates' tales of derring-do, an intrepid band crept gingerly from the Hut on Sunday morning to attack Yr Aran.  Sunday's party consisted of  Anne Berk, Albert Sillwood, Bill Burt, Bob, Jane and me.  A gentle stroll up the Watkin Path saw us exchanging chit chat with the lads doing anti-erosion work by turning the Path into a Snowdonian equivalent of the M1.  Blissfully unaware of the drama that was about to unfold, we plodded gently onwards and upwards.

At my suggestion we stopped off at the old mine on the side of the ridge leading up to Yr Aran.  In Joe Towe's absence we speculated on what had actually been mined there; blue slate? copper? gold? lead? In the end Albert pronounced that it was an old copper mine and nobody argued with him!  The more adventurous souls in the party quickly donned headlamps and pulled out torches and bravely entered the black hole.  Having safely reached a section of the tunnel with a partially collapsed roof and glimpsed through into a large gallery that opened up to the sky above, most of us retreated back to the entrance to the mine.  Not so Anne, after muttering all weekend about "doing some scrambling" she had other plans!