As life moves on so do our characters, ambitions and dreams.
A huge trip planned for 2014 means that my obsession with climbing is still firmly in the forefront of my mind, but it is taking bigger and bigger objectives to spark my fire.
Since my return from the Himalaya last November I haven’t been out on the rock much. This has been due to injury (my long suffering shoulder, oh woe is me 🙂 and also due to the huge amount of snow we have had this winter. (Skiing is FUN!)
A quick trip to Spain for some rock climbing was fantastic, but confirmed in my mind that I have a huge amount of physio style work to do on my shoulder if I am ever going to be pain free.
Jude trying the moves on an 8a in the foreground. Myself onsighting a 7a or a 7b in the background. This was a rare but welcomed sunny day on a recent trip to Spain. 9.5 hour drive from my house to Siurana. Photo: Jonny Baker.
I have however officially transformed myself in to a skier. After two years of hard work (is skiing really hard work?) I have progressed from being a liability to being more than happily competent in all terrain.
This new found ski ability has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for alpine climbs of the ‘up and over’ style, carrying skis on the route, and wearing skis on the descent.
With spring officially in town here in Chamomix, the snow is rapidly disappearing from the valley, the sky is blue and I am dreaming of some long mountain missions.
An abundance of psyched partners ranging from Chamonix ski-bums to Yorkshire based truck drivers means that in the next month I hope to get at least two major adventures in the mountains.
I’m back on the rock climbing training mission too, with a short term objective in mind for May, and a loose plan to hit the granite of Ticino in June.
Eventually the time came for us to move. Although sitting drinking in the view was sublime, we needed to start the descent to avoid another night on the face. After anchoring the ropes to a rock buried in the snow, we hopped over the ridge in to the couloir, from the sun to the shade, like two men vaulting over the handrail of a ship. My mind now focused on descent, I was once again back in the physical world of snow and ice. The ropes hung 60m straight down the couloir, yet they hardly entered this huge icy snake. This retreat was going to take some time.
Rob and I at the ledge we cut on Peak 41, preparing for the big descent. Photo: Rob Greenwood
We made steady progress down the ice, a system developed naturally; the ice anchors were built, backed-up and stripped out in a factory like process. Little was said between Rob and I, just occasional phrases, the familiar shouts of ‘Rope free’ and other climbing calls were all that punctured the soft silence of the gully, and we inched our way down the face, like ants on a house wall.
When the angle lessened we decided to pack away the ropes and down-solo to increase speed. One of the things that I enjoy about climbing with Rob is the ease of decision making. We seem to make the same decisions at the same time, meaning conflict is kept to a minimum and much of this decision making goes unspoken. This I think is the sign of a good climbing partnership.
A ledge was stomped, we traded a few words, coiled ropes and then once again started our silent descent. After a few hundred metres, I stopped to take some photographs, and Rob continued down the couloir, reaching a steep ice-bulge. Not wanting to down-solo this steeper section, he reached for his rope and cut a snow bollard anchor. The snow was in general quite poor, and we had been taking care throughout the day.
I reached the bollard just as Rob was weighting the ropes for his 30m abseil. We knew the anchor was mediocre, and Rob eased his weight on to the rope. It held.
Part way down the bulge Rob must have jiggled slightly on the rope and, like a wire through soft cheese, it cut halfway through the bollard in a second. SHIT. I shouted at Rob to get his weight off the rope, and he teetered forward on to the front points of his crampons. He down-climbed the rest of the section.
If the rope had cut through the whole way, the most likely outcome would have been that Rob would have fallen around 700m down the face, although perhaps he would have come to a stop in the snow gully. Either way, I was glad we didn’t have to find out. The strength of a few snow crystals, the weight of Rob’s pack, the friction on the rope, just these little things had, in that split second, added up and altered the course of both Rob and I’s lives forever. Rob smiled and suggested I climb down the ice instead of abseiling. I did.
Had we become complacent? We were around halfway down the face, with only easy ground below us, and yet this slight mishap could have been terminal. I shook my head and reminded myself just how dangerous a game it is that I play.
Endless but uneventful down-climbing brought us to the base of the mountain, and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Peak 41 reared up above us, shrouded in mist and snow, and the wind picked up. We could no longer see the huge couloir that we had just descended. I pulled the zip of my jacket up tight against my face and turned, pressing on toward base-camp, feeling lucky that we weren’t stuck on that upper ridge.
Me underneath Peak 41 after our attempt. The cloud partially covering the north face in the background. Photo: Rob Greenwood
The slog across the moraine to reach the comfort of our tents was long and painfully slow, yet I was glad to be stumbling over the rocks, and panting my way up the hillside. The short but unforgettable journey on this Himalayan face had taught me a lot. It had taught me about the levels of fitness required for this kind of endeavour, the strength of mind needed for multiple days out on a mountain like this, and of course I had experienced a range of emotions; dread, elation, terror, relief, wonder, connectedness, disappointment, joy, and more, all distilled to within a period of 48 hours. But more than anything else, I think this trip taught me the meaning of being in the moment and it opened my eyes even further to what a wondrous world we live in.
I was exhausted, hungry and cold, but despite these hardships, by the time I reached base-camp I had pieced together a plan. Though this adventure was not yet finished, the next one was already in the offing.
“Rob…” I said. He looked up, and I continued; “I have seen a picture of a cliff on the internet…”
Myself and Rob Greenwood back at Base-camp a couple of days after our attempt on Peak 41. Spirits were high and we were ready to start the long walk home. Photo: Andy Houseman
Morning came and and with it my feet, numb after being pushed against the tent wall, came back to life. The morning was stunning. Spirits were high, bodies were tired, but the elation of being in such a wondrous place, with such a good friend, energised my legs and made me eager to tackle what lay ahead.
With a smile on my face I set off from the bivvy, well more accurately, I let Rob set off from the bivvy and do what Rob does best – go first.
We moved together, crossing a snow bowl and reaching a further gully leading to a ridge that would hopefully take us to the summit. The snow was poor and Rob wallowed in deep powder, occasionally hammering joke pegs in to the rotten gully walls. We ploughed on.
The steepness of the gully increased just before the crest of the ridge, and this section took trail-breaker Greenwood some time to swim up. I followed, thankful for the track he had made, although as the snow collapsed so much, it wasn’t of much use. We’d left the sun of the bivvy and once again entered the world of Himalayan north face climbing. It was of course cold, and the stress of keeping fingers and toes warm was a constant companion.
After a sustained lung-bursting effort, Rob flopped on to the ridge. It looked bad; he was kicking with his legs, squirming with his body, a technique I can only assume he uses more regularly on gritstone top-outs than Himalayan faces. He thrashed around like a fish on a hook, and eventually, when he had balanced himself seesaw-like atop the crest, head in the sun, feet in the shade, he caught his breath and shouted down to me; “the ridge is a no go”.
Rob cresting the ridge, only to find it completely unclimbable.
The ridge was unclimbable it seemed. We’d climbed ourselves in to a cul de sac.
Whilst Rob’s world was literally collapsing around him, I was losing feeling in my feet, having been stood in deep snow in the shade without moving for around an hour.
“I’ll try and rig something to abseil from” he shouted.
“I’m going to untie from the rope and solo back down” I replied. The 60m of rope between us was clipped at mid-height to a peg pushed in to some terrible shale. I figured that having no one on the end of the rope was less dangerous for Rob than having a partner with frozen feet.
Rob didn’t really answer coherently, although he did acknowledge the plan, but he was busy wrestling with snow and shale, and I quietly untied myself and started to down-climb to the ledge we had cut. I couldn’t help Rob, so I concentrated on my climbing, passing a steep rocky section that was dusted in useless snow, axes scraping blindly, crampons catching, and heart leaping.
Back on the ledge, I sat on my pack, wrapped myself in everything thing I had, and hoped Rob was going to be okay. Time passed and what looked like an abseil anchor seemed to have been built. I was later to find out that the only belay Rob could build was by using a Bulldog as a sort of James Bond style grappling hook over the ridge, which explained his tentative approach to abseiling.
Back at the ledge, we briefly discussed options, but really both of us knew we had been defeated by the mountain and were ready to turn around. Rob, keen as ever, was itching to start the long abolokov journey ahead, and was sorting his gear. I looked around me at the vista; Everest in the distance, with its continuous wind-plume drifting like smoke from a factory chimney. The long, empty valley beneath me. Peaks all around, not a breath of wind on our mountain, and blue sky above. The hugeness of the place engulfed me, and I felt my insignificance.
Rob, head in hands, back at the bivvy as we decide to turn around.
I pulled out a bag of jelly babies and asked Rob if he would mind if I just sat for half an hour. I told him that this might be the only time I am halfway up an unclimbed Himalayan face with a view of Everest. He looked around, smiled and agreed. I gave him a jelly baby.
A mixture of emotions welled up. All that time, energy and focus and we had ‘failed’. And yet here we were, in this place, two friends, a view that really my words can not do justice to, an experience that I will never forget; a moment in time, that without this ‘failure’, I would never have experienced. Suddenly we weren’t in a rush, and the stress of the summit had been taken away.
The view from our bivvy. Everest in the background, Chamlang’s huge North Face on the right. Click the photo to make it bigger.
I slowly pulled the head off another jelly baby, and gazed out across the valley. I sat quietly, knowing that this moment, right now, this was it. This was my life. Never before had I experienced such a sense of being in the moment. When technical climbing, when you are in the zone, concentrating without thinking, arms and legs moving fluidly and the mind focused but quiet, it’s a special feeling and one that comes all too rarely.
But this was something completely different. A slower sensation, a more contemplative experience. A sense of wonder.
There is a question which every boy has to ask himself sooner or later. It is a very simple and a very searching question. “Shall I make my life, which after all, I can only live once, a matter of a safe job? Or shall I put it boldly to the hazard? Shall I make it a matter of adventure? Shall I give it, as far as I can, the bright colours of romance?” Prose or poetry; the safe job or the spirit of adventure – that is the question, and that is the choice.
– Sir Ernest Barker (Introduction to the book ‘The Spirit of Wonder’)
>>> I wonder if I was hypothermic. Or perhaps it was the lack of oxygen.
I lay awake wrapped in two sleeping bags, waiting for my 3:45am alarm, hoping it would never come. At around 3:30 I heard movement from the other side of the base camp, and I knew Rob was up and packing his gear, well before his alarm had gone off.
I crept my fingers out of the tent, pulling the frozen zip just enough for one eye to glance out in to the night. It was cold and still. I was hoping for a storm, a snowfall, an excuse, but there was nothing but a huge Himalayan face eerily lit by the moonlight. I ignored the face and I ignored my half-packed rucksack and I went back to being terrified. Then, like a bomb in a school, the alarm went off.
Breakfast of tea and porridge passed quickly, and I passed my porridge to Rob, a man who can eat in the face of adversity. I was in a state of near psychosis, but I hoped Rob wouldn’t notice. I found out later that he had.
Back at the tent, my headtorch died, which was odd, as the batteries were brand new. Another omen. I forced on my frozen boots, at the last second opting to wear a slightly thicker pair of liner socks than normal. The boots felt too tight. Argh. Rob was waiting, hopping from one foot to another in the -10°C gloom. First the torch, now the boots. I was flustered, angry and not thinking straight. Not good. Not good.
Rob waited patiently as his ridiculous climbing partner wasted more valuable time stripping off boots and socks. And then, no more excuses, we were off.
Underneath the huge North Face of Peak 41
I was behind by some margin as we hit the snow-dusted approach slopes, making tedious progress over loose rock and moraine. The distant head-light bobbed along, almost gayly (was he actually singing to himself?), the gap between us too large for conversation, not that I had any. My nose ran, my face froze and I concentrated on not turning an ankle in the collapsing boulder field.
We reached the huge snow couloir at the foot of the north face of Peak 41, took our axes and began to climb.
Rob Greenwood in the lower snow gully on the North Face of Peak 41.
With each kick, with each swing of the axe, my mind became absorbed and quiet. The fear, so strong just moments before, dropped away like the ground beneath me. I was just climbing, nothing more, nothing less. We climbed on as day quietly broke around us, shadows dancing and playing on the deep walls of the gully. The hugeness of the face became apparent as features that were hidden by darkness showed their true size.
We were concentrating hard. The snow was dangerous; endless windslab over bottomless sugar-snow. Boards of slab the size of kitchen tables broke away and skidded down to oblivion. We kept to the side of the gully and pretended everything was ok. Occasional ice bulges guarded progress, not technical as such, perhaps grade 3, but enough to give stopping points, rests, a mental break from the continuous avalanche slopes.
The thin ice gully we had hoped to access was tantalisingly close, but was guarded by an 80m ice smear, just 2 inches thick. It was hard and steep, but climbable, it teased us. A fall from this ice smear would be fatal, it would take no gear for at least 50 metres. We decided that this was not the place for deadly gambles, but the mountain gave us another option, a steep ice and snow couloir that was hidden from view until the last second. The couloir skirted left-wards and joined the ridge we were aiming for. We smiled and ploughed on.
The terrain steepened and for the first time we roped up. A sheet of good ice was covered in 8 inches of rime, which made for slow but safe progress, as ice screws could be dug out whenever nerve began to waver. The top of the icesheet steepened even more, and pushed us rightwards against the rockwall. This was our first experience of the rock on Peak 41 and it wasn’t good. Frost shattered shale that would take no weight, no gear, and no prisoners. Finally we popped out on to the ridge, tired, surprised at how little progress we seemed to have made, but happy with a safe bivvy spot, that would get morning sun.
“You call that flat Greenwood?” I shouted over as Rob was trying to cut a ledge.
He looked up briefly, almost bent double with exertion, breathing heavily.
“You’ll never make a plasterer.” I said.
He gave me the fingers, smiled, and sat down, tired.
We watched nightfall over Everest and settled in to our tiny bivvy tent, waiting for the sunrise.
Rob on the bivvy as nightfall approaches. Everest in the background.
My impending trip to the high mountains (Peak 41 Expedition) is looming fast. In between frantic organisation for this trip and working hard on UKClimbing.com (check out this interview with Chris Sharma) I have also been trying to realise a long-held rock climbing ambition of redpointing a hard sport route.
This has come as a bit of a last minute shock really, as I had just planned to cruise on some classic routes, but I guess due to a high volume of climbing at a moderate to high-ish (8a/+) level, and a lack of injury, I have inadvertently hit some reasonable climbing form. Although raw power is still pretty low.
Anyway this now leaves me 9 days in which to tick a project, giving me probably 3 climbing days. Not very long! ARGH!
To aid in success I have quickly tried a few different routes, and found one that suits my lanky frame, preference for crimps over pockets, and one that is in constant shade, meaning I won’t be thwarted by high temperatures. Most importantly though, the route is in an idyllic spot, a peaceful mountain paradise, and it really is a joy to go back there, which is why I am so keen. At this stage in my climbing life, it’s not about ‘the scene’, it’s not about hanging with the cool kids, it’s about quiet places, beautiful pieces of rock, and as always, trying to get better than James McHaffie. Best get back on the finger board.
It’s all systems go with the Himalaya trip though, with emails pinging back and forth, a huge pile of equipment mounting at Rob’s house and pre-trip nerves setting in big style.
The last few weeks have been a lot of fun though – and I am really looking forward to the trip.
This is the North Face of Peak 41, the face that Rob and I are aiming for next month. Unfortunately for me, it isn’t a very steep wall of granite with hard moves between slopey crimps.
Back in the spring I was on the fitness train, and it was going well. Arriving in the UK I felt good, climbed a few routes I wanted to do, including a new one at Gogarth. I enjoyed my trip to the UK, but although five weeks of trad climbing in wet weather was fun, it didn’t do much for my fitness.
Since arriving back in France a few weeks ago, I have been coasting along, working a lot, and climbing a bit, but not getting the ‘bit between my teeth’. I think it is good to by cyclic in training/climbing, and after a high point, it’s best to mentally chill out for a while. Okay, that’s enough chilling out, back on the fitness train.
To kick start the lactic acid I nipped to Ceuse for a couple of days with a fun team including Sandra, the golden girls Hazel and Maddy, the elusive Jude and the ever-young Alan. I managed to throw myself off the top of several 8as, which was somewhat telling in terms of endurance. Oh dear! But it was such fun!
The highlight of the weekend in climbing terms was seeing Maddy totally ‘killing it’ and climbing really well.
As my trip to the Himalaya is looming in only 6 weeks, I have a really limited window to achieve a hard rock route this summer, but I think I can up my game slightly, and get something ticked around Chamonix, if all goes according to plan. A five week intensive training mission is about to commence, but I need a project to focus on. Hmm, what to do, what to do?!
I think I will also have time for 1 more weekend trip to climb something fun, so psyche is generally high. Lets Smash! 🙂
A few photos:
Maddy cranking on an 8a+ to the right of Femme Noir. Looked really coolHit Girl Hazel Findlay on the 8c L’arcademicien. Smash time!Although the trip was not a photographic one in any way, I was pleased to grab this snap of Alan Carne. Alan is always psyched, and a great person to climb with. Here he is just before taking a huge whipper off the run out 8a+ Femme Blanche – Go Alan!
Me looking up at the summit of the Aiguille de Saussure from our bivvy spot. This is why alpine climbing is so special.
It all started with a screech of tyres, RnB pumping out of a stereo, and an exhaust so loud that any nearby seracs were falling like apples from a tree. Quite how her car made it all the way to Chamonix I will never understand, but right on queue, Hazel Findlay landed in town, with a thirst for adventure and a hot-wired Citroen Saxo.
The Findlay-Geldard Route. 600m. Maximum difficulties encountered: E5 Rock, Scottish VI,6 Mixed.
The Aiguille de Saussure is a rock spire above the Glacier des Bossons, on the side of Mont Blanc du Tacul. A triangle of perfect granite, it is easily visible from Les Houches, and piques the interest of many climbers’ eyes.
According to my research, it didn’t have a route up its beautiful orange front face. The original route follows a spiral of weakness, following large cracks and chimneys, and the only other route I could find out about involves some aid climbing and finishes up the original line.
What a cool place to do some new trad climbing!
The upper headwall of the spike itself is quite small, perhaps 200 – 250m in height, but the access is tricky. In wintery conditions it is possible to abseil to a point way below the spike from Mont Blanc du Tacul, which is the normal access for the famous but rarely climbed Afanasieff-Bodin Gully, a front cover route adorning the Snow, Ice and Mixed guidebook.
The Snow, Ice and Mixed guidebook, clearly showing the ice gully, and of course the rock spire on the right. Nice!
This is the approach Hazel and I first checked out, but unfortunately it was under constant stonefall, and the gully was dry in its lower half (we were kind of expecting this). Our plan changed, and we climbed the side of Mont Blanc du Tacul and abseiled in from the very top of the gully to reach the breche between the mountain and the Aiguille de Saussure. From there we abseiled down the rock spike itself to reach the ledge system below the headwall. Game on.
We chose a line up the centre of the front face, following our noses as we climbed, and not necessarily taking the easiest way, but climbing what we thought looked like the best pitches. Hazel made a couple of good leads, one being a poorly protected face-climbing pitch, the other a loose chimney/offwidth pitch. I opted for a perfect hand crack! 😉
Hazel ‘Alpine Tiger’ Findlay on a pitch of E5 on the front face of the Aiguille de Saussure, Mont Blanc du Tacul.Myself on a perfect hand crack pitch. Lovely granite hey!
Once on top, a short abseil lands you in the breche, which gives reasonably comfortable options for bivvy sites. It was essential for us to bivvy here, as the gully was in a dangerous condition anytime after noon, so we bedded down until 5am to get the upper ice at least semi-frozen.
The first pitch to get in the gully proper proved a little problematic, as all the ice had melted out of what would have been a great 85 degree ice pitch, leaving some thin and loose mixed climbing instead – meaning an engaging breakfast for me. Once in the gully proper, a few hundred metres of Scottish 4 and then 2/3 led us virtually to the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul.
Hazel smashing her way up the final ice slopes. Findlay, a natural on the ice, climbed as gracefully as a new born horse on a frozen lake.
So, in short: a fun new route in the Mont Blanc Range (you don’t get those everyday!) with some tricky free climbing, and some nice ice romping.
Getting the gully in better condition would probably mean freezing hands on the rock, so we think we struck a good compromise.
Also it is entirely possible that the face has been climbed before, but we are 99% sure that the line we took would be new, as we followed fun features to give exciting technical free climbing, as opposed to the very easiest way.
Hazel ‘altitude don’t bother me mate’ Findlay on the Mont Blanc du Tacul after topping out of the gully.
We assume the peak is named after the famous Alpinist, who made the third ascent of Mont Blanc. You can read more about him on Wikipedia. Here he is below:
The ledge system at the top of the Main Cliff of Gogarth is 60m above the sea. Most ropes these days are 60m long. Now I’m no genius, but I had an idea…
The routes on the steep headwall section of the main cliff weave their way up, usually in two or three pitches, skirting slightly sideways to belay on good ledges along the way. A direct way up the centre of the steep wall, with continuously overhanging climbing, no rest and mega exposure, had to be possible, and it was with this in mind that I found myself at the foot of Main Cliff, tied in to Jimmy Big Guns. First up was a quick romp up Dinosaur, the classic E5, and a route I’d never done before, I was psyched!
Climbing through the crux, I eyed a flake out right that would take me straight in to the headwall, and not out left to the belay ledge. Aha! I made a mental note and we carried on up Dinosaur. And what a route it is. The guidebook description about needing micro cams is of course nonsense, and the route is well protected and has great moves in a fantastic position. I just love those Main Cliff E5’s!
Okay – so that’s the left hand entrance sorted, now lets switch sides, and move to the right: Alien!
Big Guns had followed the imposing corner of Alien (E6 6b) a few weeks previous and was psyched to get on the sharp end. Up he went, and I paid out the rope. In went a few cams, but then Big Guns started to look pumped. Although he got a little flustered, I saw a look of determination on his face and he forged upward, but alas, the arms were spent, and down he flew, taking a lob from somewhere near the crux section.
It’s a double edged sword taking over the reins when your mate has just taken a big fall. The good points being you already have some of the gear placed for you, and you’ve probably seen a few of the moves (although I never really pay attention). The bad points being that, well, you’ve just seen your mate, who is way stronger and fitter than you, take a massive lob…
I was psyched!
I grinned and set off up Alien. By some miracle I found it pretty straightforward and enjoyed the moves, looking ever leftwards for a way up the headwall to create a new link-up route. There was a way, but it seemed not quite as logical as the Dinosaur link… Okay, lets come back tomorrow, and we’ll see how it all goes…
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Firing through the crux of Dinosaur, with a long way to go still…
The next evening, and conditions were not quite as good.
I was stood underneath Dinosaur, sporting the word’s biggest rack. Over to the side was Robbie Rocket Pants, fighting his way up Mammoth, another classic E5. He looked pumped, and as is his way, began to fight upwards with ever-increasing urgency. His rapid-fire commentary was raining down like machine gun bullets, and everyone knew he was going to take the mighty fall. Off he came, and down he went!
Psyched!
Dinosaur felt pretty easy, and I headed off up the flake on the right. Higher and higher I went, and then I was in to the E6 ‘The Big Sleep’. It was all going according to plan. All of a sudden my arms were pumped. I eyed up a big flat hold, busted some moves and grabbed it, just. Things were getting out of control.
Looking up the headwall, trying to see the best line.
I managed to wiggle in a Wallnut 1, and eyed up the runout to gain the good holds of Positron. There was nothing else for it, I had to go on, and I started snatching sidepulls as fast as I could.
Snatching up sidepulls on the crux headwall section of The Big Sleep. Lots of climbing behind me.
Arms bursting, eyes on stalks, I grabbed the good hold of Positron with my right hand. YES! I’d made it, and thank God, as the little wire now looked very small and very far away. But.. NOO… I was too pumped, my fingers were opening on the flake. I was panicking. Instinctively I snatched up my left hand. I had both hands wrapped around the jug, but the smears for my feet were not taking any weight. I couldn’t hold on, and slowly my fingers started opening, one at a time, like someone peeling a banana. The 55m of pumpy climbing had fried my arms. I was off.
“NOOOOO!” I screamed. The boys at the base all had a little giggle. I arched through the air, and managed to scream another ‘NOOO” on the way down, landing virtually back at the Dinosaur belay. 🙂
About a week later I went back and led the route, but getting to the same position again, and being equally as pumped, I realised that The Big Sleep is a bit eliminate, so I bridged 1m left and got a shake-out in the second pitch of Dinosaur (E4). This was enough to replenish the reserves and carry me up the rest of the route, but it wasn’t quite the unrelenting pump-fest I was looking for.
Still, ‘Dinosnore’ is born, and there is still more to come from this amazing section of cliff.
Rock climbing – isn’t it brilliant!
Thanks to Ray Wood for filming this route, and Paul Diffley of HotAches for sending me the screen grabs.
Also big up to Big Guns (legend) and Rocket Pants (loveable fool) and Chamonix visitors Cautious Tom and American Geoff. Such fun times!
It was my last day in Wales and I woke up in the South Stack car park. The weather was a bit shitty, but I hoped it would clear. I had a couple of brews to warm up, packed my things, texted Jimmy Big Guns to arrange a 6pm belay, and set off at a trot toward the Main Cliff. It was late morning, leaving me enough time for a bit of soloing before Jim came and we roped up.
The scramble down to the cliff always feels more dicey than it should, and I find myself questioning my ability on rock, after my inability on the approach path. The cliff seemed dry enough, but sea mist was swirling in and I was hesitant. But I was aching to be up on the Main Cliff headwall.
I crouched under the first pitch of Positron and collected my thoughts. They went along these lines; Do I want to do this? Oh yes I do. Hmm, it would be cool to have a photo. God, do I want to do this so I can show off photos afterwards. Hmm. I don’t think so. But maybe. God that is weird. Maybe I can take a photo of myself when I get to a big hold. Christ what if I fall off trying to take a photo of myself soloing. But if I don’t take a photo, perhaps no one will believe me. So, that means I care if people believe me. I shouldn’t care. I don’t care. I’m not taking a fucking camera. Jesus.
Whilst thinking the above load of nonsense I put on an old pair of rock shoes, enjoying their well-used feel. I over-filled my chalk bag and set off up the route. It was greasy, covered in that fine film of slipperiness that all Gogarth climbers know. Not wet as such, but what we call ‘goppy’. I told myself that the headwall would be dryer, as it’s further from the sea, and I pressed on a little higher.
Then, as quickly and haphazardly as I started, I reversed, it was too slippery. My thoughts on the headwall being dry were not true, and somewhere deep in my mind, I knew that today wasn’t the day.
After hot-footing it back up the approach path, I moved left and soloed across the top of the cliff on an easier girdle route, a HVS called Cordon Bleu. It was damp so I was on a go slow, a 60m drop and some loose grass and rocks were enough to make me maintain 100% concentration.
Arriving at the sloping ledges above the main cliff headwall, I sling a spike, toss my rope over and abseil down the wall, checking the dryness, and looking for the right line to take to link two pitches together, to create a new link-up route that tackles the centre of the main wall.
The rock is by this time soaking wet and I am hanging 60m above the sea, in the middle of perhaps the biggest cliff in North Wales, and I am glad I have my rope. My earlier decision to back off from soloing was the wisest move I have made for some time. I smile.
I feel at ease on the rock, in this place, with myself. The sea is giving its constant rumble, that almost unnoticed backing-track to all sea cliff routes. I look out at the boats in the distance, and I feel happy. I switch from abseiling to an ascender, and start climbing out, the ascender following me up the rope, offering me protection if I fall. What a funny place to be shunting routes, I think to myself. But it feels like home. I love the texture of the rock, the holds, the shapes, and with the comfort of my rope, I enjoy the slippery dampness. The exposure is wild and I can taste the clamminess of the billowing sea mist.
I hear noises on the ledges above and I freeze. Climbers are on the easier route, where I have left my sling that is holding my rope. I tug on the rope and it seems solid, so I jump back on to it, using my weight to make sure that the climbers above don’t take off my sling. There are lots of spikes above the hard routes of the main cliff, and it is quite common to leave slings and carabiners there to abseil from, especially if you want to do several routes in quick succession. It has happened to me several times that climbers on the traverse have crag-swagged my gear, as I have been just 50m below, gearing up for the next route. I was worried that those above me now might do the same thing, and my safety line that I was just a few moments ago most happy with, would go whooshing down past me and pull me off in to a watery oblivion.
The climbers passed, and said hello. I knew them and it seemed odd to see some familiar faces in this place, in this weather. I continued climbing up the headwall, pausing a moment to sit on the bucket seat belay, a tiny bum shaped ledge, perched at the very apex of the headwall.
I didn’t realise either of my climbing ambitions that day. In fact I didn’t climb anything really. But I did have five minutes alone on the bucket seat belay. The best seat in the house.
Jack Geldard - Climbing, Skiing, Writing, Images and Videos 