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Pete Smith and Bill LeClerc-Gigot in North Wales. August 2002.
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A return to God's Own Country for Our Boyo, your own correspondent,
Pete Smith, was combined with a family holiday for the Smiths and
the LeClerc-Gigots, plus a fantastic opportunity for Bill Le-Clerc-Gigot
and me to knock off a classic route or two. It might amaze seasoned
Colmcillers everywhere to hear that this was my first trip to the
north of the Land of My Fathers - I'll explain to anyone who will
listen, but you'll have to catch me with a spare half hour and feed
me beer (otherwise my renowned reticence will still my tongue, I expect).
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I've only got a narrow space to write in here so I will try to use
short words.
The sun awoke bright and early on the first day of the holiday and
Bill and I set off for Llanberis at about 8 bells of the morning watch,
leaving our respective spouses (spice?) to entertain our respective
chiddlers. The bloke in the climbing shop took one look at us and
surmised (correctly) that we would want a nice easy route to do, so
he recommended a trip to the Ogwen Valley and an ascent of Grooved
Arête HVD (nota bene, this is not your average v. diff,
it is a HARD v. diff - the kind of thing that only hard men like Bill
and me can tackle, don't bother trying if you are a bit soft or a
pansy).
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Before we travelled round to Ogwen, we went across the road to Pete's
Eats - that famous haven for generations of climbers - and drank tea
whilst poring over the guidebook and planning the day's heroic adventures.
Bill mentioned that I had been embarrassingly loud when I had picked
up the Donegal guidebook in the shop and said "Oh look, I'm on
the front cover". I assured him that I had been as discreet as
I possibly could be (while still holding out hope of being heard).
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| Grooved
Arête is on Tryfan, one of Wales' 3000 foot hills (i.e. hills
over 3000 feet, not foothills numbered in their thousands). The climbing
starts at about 2000 foot, so we had a long walk-in despite the fact
that the route is 810 feet in length. The weather was hot and sunny
and our paltry rations of water were starting to look ridiculous by
the time we reached the toe of Grooved Arête. The valley
[pics] is used by the RAF to teach jet
pilots how to fly and we stopped regularly to watch Hawk jets racing
up the valley at about 500mph. |
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We were told that we would know our route by the crowds gathered
at the foot of it, but luckily we were the first team to arrive and
were able to set off in pleasantly unhurried circumstances. We debated
the merits of leaving our gear at the base, but were persuaded by
a knowledgeable local that we would regret it later if we did. This
meant that we both had to ascend with a pack weighing about 7kg and
that the leader of each pitch would have to add about 7kg of gear
to his load. Ah well, it's only 8 pitches.
To cut a long story short(ish) I led some pitches
and Bill led the rest. I put gear in every 10 foot or so; Bill put
gear in every 10m or so. By some strange magic I managed to run together
a 27m and a 37m pitch without either of us noticing (and without our
60m rope coming to its end). This resulted in a degree of confusion
when comparing route to guidebook, but like two seasoned multi-pitch
campaigners we coped. We summited after finishing the route, allowing
me to claim my first Welsh McMurdo, and then we made the one and a
half hour walk-off back to the car. A great day's climbing.
The only other climbing done during the brief holiday was a bit
of bouldering on the beach at Borth-y-Gest. [Photo]
What an attractive behind, if I may say so. [Photo]
[Photo]
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