A rockfall at Cwm Silyn in Snowdonia has left the upper sections of some classic climbing routes in a dangerous state, including well known and popular routes such as Outside Edge Route, Ordinary Route and other routes that finish near the top of the Great Slab.

Alpine guide Mark Walker (no stranger to loose rock!) was climbing on the Great Slab on Cwm Silyn over the last weekend of September and reports that a major rockfall has left the top pitches and the scramble finish in a dangerous and precarious state.

Mark states "while the main climbing up the slab and the upper pitches remain unaffected it may come as a shock to unsuspecting climbers to find on the upper easy scramble that there are several tons of seriously loose and unstable rock, just hanging there waiting to fall to the base of the Cwm below!"

The routes affected include The Ordinary Route, Outside Edge Route and quite possibly also other popular routes that climb stright up the Great slab, such as Kirkus' Route and routes that cross the steeper ground below the finishes of the first routes. The image above show the area before the rockfall - apparently considerable parts of ridge has either collapsed or is in a very precarious state.

Hopefully a good hard winter may well help to clear any remaining loose rock but in the meantime climbers are warned to take great care climbing in this area, especially if there are other climbers below them.

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