'Lord Baker' in Langstrath: Cam Crag Ridge

Siobhan Appleby above Langstrath.

There was a lord who lived in this land Being a lord of high degree.
He left his fort for a ship's board
And swore strange countries he would go see.

Langstrath sounds like what it is - a flat valley floor as wild and 'lang' as a border ballad - and I'd never set foot in it. I don't know how that had come to be the case. It's a bit of an embarrassment really in a mountaineer with a hairline well in recession. (Until last year I'd never walked up Ennerdale either.) If you're always going to crags you can miss out on some fine valleys even in Borrowdale. So wanting to be a lord of this land in some degree I 'swore strange countries I would go see'.

Resting my fully extended rucksack against a wall to check the map at the first bridge across the beck I found that the midges tend to take a bite at midday here in July. I was sweating already and knew that with camping and climbing gear, not to mention wine aboard I'd soon be slightly extended myself. Norman, Kevin and Barbie were already well ahead, but I find that sailing up the motorway from Sheffield can actually weaken your legs.

He travelled east and he travelled west
He travelled south and the north also
Until he arrived into Turkey's land
Where he was taken and bound in prison
Until his life it grew weary.

It was a bit early to grow weary since I'd only walked from Stonethwaite's cottages and through the campsite, a magical grove that used to be romantically known as 'Fairy Glen' in books with titles like Odd Corners in English Lakeland. It certainly is an odd corner nowadays, though perhaps with fewer fairies. Who knows? Crossing the bridge there was a last glimpse of Eagle Crag round the corner to the left stuck out of the fellside like the end of an upright piano. Music seemed to be in my head as I followed the others into the unfolding long journey that is Langstrath. Whole herds of rustled cattle could be hidden in the pastures of this strath, knives could be drawn here, Turkey's daughter ('as fair a lady as the eye did see') could rise from bathing in Blackmoss Pot to cut Lord Baker's prison bonds and lead him to a ship harboured in the narrow black zawn of Sergeant's Gully. It's that sort of a valley.

The track, keeping close below the little broken walls of Heron Crag, brings you up to a flat-topped tower called Gash Rock which all but blocks the path. Below it is the green pool known as Blackmoss Pot where Harry Griffin, in a memorable entry for The Guardian's 'Country Diary', recommended bathing where 'neither costume nor towel was needed', although he did admit that 'this becomes too popular in heatwaves for my sort of dips, being too close to a well used track'. Above the track at Gash Rock the black cleft of Sergeant's Gully rises up straight as a sword.

Bentley Beetham on the first ascent of Little Chamonix in 1946: Photo FRCC

In O. G. Jones' first pitch by pitch guide to the Lakes of 1897 the Abraham brothers contributed a grainy granite-textured photograph of the difficulties on the fourth pitch of this climb. A wild beard of woodrush, the eagle's favourite nest lining, overhung the chockstone. The steep left wall offered the solution. Jones wrote, 'From a short distance this appears to be a smooth vertical slab; even on close inspection the holds it offers appear to be of the most minute dimensions'. Bentley Beetham's guide of 1953 commented: 'A very difficult pitch but no longer incommoded by vegetation'. It looked to me a great winter classic that holds the snow well and long. It's only given one star in Winter Climbs in The Lake District but this valley promises more than can be described in stars, words or grades. It needs music; it needs pipes for carrying on the long rush of air it contains.

At last, after passing above several notable alternatives to Harry Griffin's Blackmoss Pot, which almost tempted us to rashness, we saw the tent of friends we'd come to camp with high up the fabled Strath. They'd left their tent on the big bend above all the deep pots and plunging forces at a point where the river braids into little rolling plaits of water. By the time we'd pitched our own tents they'd appeared from up the valley and we all saw, looking back down the dale a soaring hump of rock, unnoticed on the walk in. Cam Crag Ridge stands clear of the green fellside as a slightly stepped, rounded spine on the skyline. Barbie was into the discoveries of the new scrambling guide after a long experience of fell walking and trekking. She vowed she'd climb the white back of Cam Crag Ridge, and this is the valley where vows are strong:

They made a vow for seven years
And seven more for to keep it strong
Saying `If you don't wed with no other woman I'm sure I'll wed with no other man.

Roused by the force of this we grabbed slings, rope and torches just in case, before stalking off through the grass, boulders and bracken to keep an appointment with the horizon.
Now it's in the nature of scrambling that a description in a guide cannot be as well defined as for a rock climb: you're finding your own way through uncharted wild country. If you accept that, you can pass below the jumble of boulders that probably provide a very interesting start to the ridge, and see instead the raven's nest round the corner, perched on a block, trailing a long bit of binder twine down into space. At the first platform on the ridge we began to savour the rock we were vowed to climb. Andy found a way, Barbie followed searching for holds with a clarity of purpose the ballads are made of. I threw more words and tunes to the wind behind, whilst Dave, forgotten at the back, enjoyed a new experience. Kev drifted about between us, focusing and refocusing his black Cyclops' eye from Japan as if the oral tradition had never existed.

 
Liam Appleby under The Glaciated Slab

Years seemed to pass as the ridge steepened and reclined, steepened and reclined in front of us. A little wall always gave to an open scoop, a top edge would reveal solid jugs to an easing slab up to a grassy break which we'd cross to a wall to start again. One steep section was littered with loose flakes which required care but mostly the rock was clean and sharp or leaning and rough, without tricks or traps. The final wall weakens with a groove and crack beside a tree. This last problem sharpens the enjoyment of hold-searching before a final rush to the flattening top of the ridge.

Barbie was pleased with her achievement, quite rightly. While I was babbling words she nodded silently, her eyes screwed up in that deep, inner, staring smile of hers. It was a great spot above the length of Langstrath with route-finding problems solved behind us. I was pleased to be part of it, but I was really married to the rock routes I realised that day, much as I'd enjoyed this scramble too. That night in the tent, well after dark, when all the bottles lay empty on the turf outside (temporarily) I sang what I could remember of the ballad of 'Lord Baker', how Turkey's daughter had searched for him when those seven years and seven more were over and done, finding him at last on the very day he'd taken a new bride in. When she sent a message that she was at the door asking for a piece of his wedding cake 'and a glass of your wine it being ere so strong',

He took his sword all by the handle,
Cut the wedding cake in pieces three
Saying 'there's a piece for Turkey's daughter, Here's a piece for the new bride and one for me'. And Lord Baker ran to his darling,
Of twenty one steps he made but three.
He caught his arms round Turkey's daughter
And kissed his true love most tenderly.

The next day Norman and I walked down the valley, Bowfell being in mist, hitched to the Bowder Stone car park and rediscovered the delights of pure rock moves which had been our true marriage all along; in this case the surprisingly neglected moves provided by Quayfoot Buttress, directly above the car park. Aberration (MVS), appropriately named for us, deserves to be better known since it rivals Ardus (Severe) on Shepherd's Crag for its delicate leftwards traverse on the top pitch. All that remained was a lunchtime pint in the Scafell Hotel with a warm lad who gave us a lift, a celebratory exchange of good routes yet to be done, and we'd both seen strange countries and found our true passion in the way of the narrative of things lived and sung.

Painting: Bill Peascod  


Terry Gifford: The Joy of Climbing: Whittles Publishing
Images: john Appleby unless stated.

Rhapsody in Rust

I found this old unpublished homage to V Dubs recently. I'm not even sure what media it was originally intended for but the sentiments expressed may still ring true for afficienados of original VW Campers and stir the same emotions.We're talking about the old air cooled rustbuckets here, which you could pick up for for relatively little and restore without breaking the bank.The modern VW Camper/Transporter is a totally different beast.With both water cooled petrol and diesel engines and costing a small fortune,the age of the '125 sheets' camper is well and truly in the past.



I took out all the seats and away I went
It's a right old banger and the chassis' bent .
It's got a great big peace sign across the back
And most of the windows have been painted black.
The windshield's cracked, it's a bugger to drive
It starts making smoke over thirty-five.
It's a psychedelic nightmare with a million leaks
It's home sweet home to some sweet arse freaks

Ian Dury


One of these days some young kid is going to write in and say; 'I've just passed my driving test and I'd like to know what's a good climbers car ?  Oh dear boy,do you really need to ask! For more than three decades there has really been only been one vehicle to chuck a sack in the back of and take off into them tha hills; a vehicle which has transcended mere transportation to become an icon of cool.The ubiquitous VW camper van. It doesn't matter whether your preference is for a 'splitty' , 'a bay' or a 'wedgie; the V Dub has become the vehicle of choice for climbers, surf bums and all cool creatures west of Bohemia.

My own attachment to VDubs goes back some years and remains worryingly undiminished. At the moment two red and white two-tone wagons sit outside;one a 69 bay, I'm thinking of exhibiting for the next Turner prize. This scrapyard thing, now all but stripped of its vital organs,has become a rusting, fading box of rare beauty.

Time and the elements have conspired to coat the bodywork with a scumbled patina while rust inexorably eats away at the extremities.Under the propped hood,in the empty engine compartment, an old sheep dog sleeps in the shade while up above, cats stretch out in the sun on the dented roof.

It came from a semi on Costa Geriatrica-Colwyn Bay-where I'd noticed it on my travels. Handing over 125 sheets,it was loaded on the back of a trailer I'd borrowed from a garage in Gweddelwern-the garage is no longer there; it literally blew up when it's cache of butane bottles went up like a nuclear device. The towing vehicle was a friend's Espace which saw it's clutch burned out tackling the 1-4 hills near home on the way back.

My current VW is a Wedgie which came from a windsurfing fiend a year ago.400 nicker sans MOT .I rather like the reflective rear window with the huge 'animal' logo and of course,the obligatory yin-yang sticker.

My home page shows a white wedgie marooned amongst a sea of Moroccan sand dunes under an indigo sky. It's a reflection of a dream I have.Driving down through France and Spain and then across to Morocco,down the coast to Mogodor where Hendrix and Joe Orton used to hang out in the sixties. Despite the fact that 'animal' hasn't been further than Aberdovey yet, who knows,it could happen? But then again, pigs might fly !

Anyone who drives an old camper has to expect to spend some time at the side of the road with the rear hood up. They have a habit of throwing the third cylinder and the Heath Robinson gear linkage often fails. I always carry wire and springs to effect running repairs. On a recent trip to Cornwall, I counted three old campers at various points broken down en-route. On a trip to the north west of Scotland,my starter motor went at Carlisle. The rest of the trip I had to effect the bump start which meant finding an incline I could park up on. On the way back, driving flat out on the Inverness by-pass, the rear nearside wheel bearing shattered causing the wheel to collapse and jam under the wheel arch.We careered across three lanes of fast moving traffic before coming to a stop. After applying some emergency treatment in the fortuitously sited lay-by we limped home to north Wales in 13 hours.My late friend Chas, drove back from Scotland to Wales with a totally knackered gearbox.Only able to engage 3rd, he kept an old flat iron propped up against the gearstick to stop it jumping out. Unable to do above 30, his journey home must have been even slower than ours.At least our crocked Combi could reach 40.
 

Then there was the time when my young friend Scott and I were on a climbing trip in the Lakes. We were parked up on one of the picnic sites next to Lake Coniston. Two o clock in the morning and with the smell of burning rubber and screeching tyres a trio of Cumbrian scallies circled our bus in their bangers, acting out a lakelandesque version of Fort Apache. My reaction was to run around in my underpants wielding a table leg shouting 'we've got a dog you know ! In hindsight,it sounds like a scene cut from Withnail and I.'


Did we have a dog...can't remember? If we did it must have been Tom, the first Labrador to climb a variant of 'Cyfwy Arete'. Scott slept through the whole thing. 

This addiction is becoming too much I've got three V Dubs which I've clocked on my travels, all sitting forlornly in someones drive. It's always the same " I'm sorry to bother you but I couldn't help but notice'.Then I'm driving home in a vehicle which bears more red oxide than original paint. It's not as if I haven't got enough to do. There's more to life than lying under a camper wearing a welding mask while sparks pour down like silver . One of these liberated machines was a blue bay which I only had for three weeks before a chance conversation down at the local tip saw a young hipster offer me a 300% mark up on the purchase price. Next time I saw him he told me 'well.. it was rotten as a pear underneath but I welded up and drove it to Frankfurt last week'. ( The Red Wedge was sold to a guy who drove it to Barcelona three days later).


The V Dub cognoscenti are invariably drawn from that category of humanity labelled 'likeable eccentrics'. One of these gentle souls was Mal, under whose tutelage I first took an engine out of a bus. Mal was a surprisingly sanguine character in the circumstances. Knowing that his toddler son had but a few months to live, he took off with him in his old bus on a caravanserai across southern Europe. 'We just wanted to give him a nice time before he died' he said in a remarkably calm, philosophical way. As we pulled the engine clear he remarked " well....do you think you could manage it by the side of the road in the Dordogne?'
Hmmm...possibly, but,at the side of the road on the Kendal by-pass in the pouring rain...Possibly not.

Camper's are made for summer. In winter they gather green moss and blisters. The heaters are crook and the thought of heading north swaddled in warm clothes trying to de-ice a frozen windscreen with a gloved hand is too much.

But then spring comes; you turn the key and the throaty aircooled engine spins into life. Levellers on the scrap-yard stereo, the musty smell of winter clinging to the sleeping bags, red wine stains on the rammy curtains and a curiously sticky steering wheel? Leaving the narrow lanes of Wales behind,cresting Aston hill at Ewloe; the Cheshire Plain stretches out as far as the eye can see. Beeston Castle, Stanlow Oil Refinery, the ICI plant at Runcorn. Familiar North west landmarks hove into view.Within half an hour I will be leaving the 56 and joining the M6. Pedal to the metal and she growls up to an impressive juice slurping 65. Sheesh! Behind me the hills of home...in front of me ... the north.

Words and images: John Appleby

Wild Mountain Time

Though the amount of our farm work had increased, we still climbed for pleasure and occasionally managed to go away for a night or two. One fine weekend, we went to climb the Great Gully on Craig yr Ysfa. As so often happened on a day in the mountains with Paul, time seemed to slow down. There was infinity between dawn and dusk on those days. We walked, ascending higher and higher into the sanctuary of the hills. There was no one else about. We ate our sandwiches on the bwlch looking down into Cwm Eigiau, and then descended to the foot of the crag. Here bilberries grew in profusion and we lingered, eating the ripe boot-button fruit and talking.

Now we were in shadow and the Great Gully looked formidable, an eight-hundred foot gorge up the face of the cliff. In places it cut in deeply and gripped enor­mous chock-stones between its walls. Even now, I had a sort of mountain stage-fright at the beginning of a climb and a feeling of awe at the magnificence of the crags. I began to imagine myself a little tired and half hoped that Paul would say it was too late to begin so long a climb. He had shown some inclination to dally, but now he was standing up. `Come on,' he said. 'Let's begin.'

We walked up the scree to the foot of the gully. It was so steep that the capstone at the top was visible from our position. We tied on the rope and then Paul was climbing upwards. My turn came and the feeling of lassitude disappeared as my boot nails engaged with rock, as a sense of elevation came with each careful move upwards. The climb was classed as very difficult or severe when conditions were wet but, with Paul leading, it did not seem hard. We were having a good day and now small feelings of happiness like champagne bubbles rose inside me. In the depths of the gully, deeply shadowed, the air was chill and the rock water-worn. Strange masses of greenery, not met with on the open hill, flourished here—cushions of moss like green sponges, parsley fern and reeds. The rock architecture was impressive, towering up on either side of the cleft and bridged by the jammed boulders.

Craig yr Ysfa

We looked out from the depths of the gully through the rock walls to a view of the opposite slopes, dazzling in the sunshine. The floor of Cwm Eigiau, the Valley of the Abysses, became more and more distant as we ascended and time seemed to stretch indefinitely to accommodate the length of the climb.
The last pitch, reached near evening, was the Great Cave Pitch. The gully cut deeply inwards and was bridged by huge hock-stones. The largest was about the size of a London bus, gripped firmly in the jaws of the mountain. We passed under it, stooping a little, into the near-darkness of the cave behind. Water trickled down the walls and planes of wet rock faintly reflected the light outside. There was a dank smell. It was now necessary to reach the top of the chock-stone from behind and this Paul did. Then he waited for me, jamming his body upright between the chock-stone and the ceiling of the cave.

It was difficult to launch himself from the floor of the gully and outwards on to the hold-less bulk of the boulder and then to wriggle upwards to its crest, but I managed to do so. I jammed myself as best I could while Paul attempted to walk out to where a narrow ledge on the left wall of the gully could be reached. The surface of the chock-stone sloped down and outwards to the immense drop which it overhung. It was smooth, hard and wet. Paul's boot nails skidded ominously :s he inched forward. There seemed to be no handholds. He balanced precariously and then stopped. 'I'm going to try it in socks,' he said. He removed his boots, first one and then the other, slowly and with care so as not to lose his balance. With stockinged feet he had a better grip and he crept outwards with the palms of his hands pressed against the low ceiling to give stability.

Then he stepped from the chock-stone to the ledge, found a belay and it was my turn. Bootless too, I followed in his footsteps. It was thrilling to balance out from the darkness to the light, across the bridge over nothingness, with the feel of damp-, smooth rock under stockinged feet, rock which was ready to shoot the climber out into kingdom-come if one ill-judged move were made. Then I stepped across on to the ledge and it was over. A few more yards of scram­bling brought us to the top and we walked out of shadow into the clear evening sunshine.. It was an exhilarating finish to a long and splendid climb.

We decided to go on to the top of Carnedd Llewellyn. The summit lay westwards, further along the ridge. Now the sunshine had a golden quality and a slight breeze was blowing from the Irish Sea. We seemed to be half way between earth and sky, with the world laid out at our feet. We paused on the top to watch the sun setting behind the bulk of Carnedd Dafydd. The Menai Strait away to our right were like a river of fire. It was unusual to see so rarified and so golden a scene and it stayed in our minds. Some distance below the summit, but above Llyn Llygwy, lay a small cwm in the fold of the hills. Here we decided to bivouac. We had our sleeping bags with us and, after a day of space, sun­shine and freedom, we could not depart from our dream of high places too abruptly. We put our few belongings on a small mound and squatting round the spirit stove, we made a meal of soup, biscuits and chocolate. We had been in shadow for some time and now the light was fading from the sky and the cool airs of evening were around us. The night would be calm and clear.

Then Paul said: 'Look, wild ponies.'
While we had been eating, a small herd had come over the shoulder of the hill and were grazing on the opposite slope four or five hundred yards away. There were a few foals among them. They looked beautiful in the fading light, wild and foot-loose on the open mountain. Their coming gave the final touch of enchantment to our lonely cwm. I wish we could have some ponies,' I said.
We considered the idea as we washed the soup mugs in the stream and cleaned our teeth, but there seemed no place for ponies in our schemes. Already, we had as much stock as the land could carry, with no spare grazing or hay. We had a tractor for farm work and there was little time for pleasure riding. Reluctantly, we decided that we could not have ponies on the farm. And yet I kept on watching the wild herd there on the hillside.

We laid our sleeping bags side by side and settled down. The night breeze was on our faces and there was no moon, but the Milky Way was a river of stars above us. A sheep in the cwm gave a hoarse, old man's cough and, infinitely high and far away, came the flutings of a curlew's call. I half woke in the hour of dawn when the air was heavy with dew and night thinning away from the hills. The silence of daybreak seemed to have a quality of echoing hollowness over the land. And then I slept again, and it was full day when I woke at last. The cwm was still in shadow but the sparkling morning sunshine lighted the upper slopes of the hills, winking from wet places on the rocks, or finding a diamond in a vein of quartz. It highlighted the glossy coats of the ponies as they grazed on the slopes. The foals were playing, filled with the joy of life and a fine summer morning. Little shrieks and neighs floated across to us as they frolicked. Paul was awake and talkative now. His face looked very young and alive.

`Let's not get up till the sunshine comes,' he said.
We could see the line of shadow retreating towards us as the sun rose higher and higher. We lay, two warm cocoons in sleeping bags, and waited delightedly for the sun to knock us up. At last it touched the sleeping bags, crept across them and was full and warm on our faces. Then we had breakfast and left the cwm, bathing in Llyn Llygwy on the way down.

Not all our mountain days were spent in fine weather. Some­times we went on the hills when it was too rough or cold to climb, went just for the fun of experiencing the weather. Sometimes we went hoping to climb, and were turned back. Whatever happened, each outing had its own special quality and was enjoyed. One December day we set off to climb Snowdon. It was unusually cold with lead-coloured clouds boiling round the shoulders of the mountains. Now and again, one of the peaks would come clear before the next mass of cloud gulped it down. A stiff, cold wind blew. We went to the foot of the Watkin path on Paul's motor­cycle, left it by the side of the lane and set off uphill towards the greyness of the heights above. The wind whipped cold in our faces and the waterfalls sang and splashed through a gag of early ice. The pools shone with a slaty reflection of the sky. There was a dramatic quality about the day and the weather which spurred us on to climb the path with greater speed.

We passed the Glad­stone Rock and the disused slate quarry with its roofless stone barracks, left Cwm Llan and climbed to the ridge of the south­west spur. From it, we had a magnificent view of valleys, lakes and mountains with their heads lost in the wrathful grey clouds. The ceiling of cloud was only a few hundred feet above us and streamers of mist, like hurrying ghosts, blew by. The wind was very cold and strengthening and so we decided not to go on to the top, where there would be nothing to see. After a last look at the wintry splendour, we turned down-hill over the frozen turf and ice-glazed shale. Now a few snowflakes whirled past. It would be a bad time to be benighted on the hills, but Paul was a safe guide.

Down in the cwm once more, Paul suggested that we brew tea in the shelter of the old quarry buildings; he had the necessary materials in the rucksack. We prowled round the derelict sheds and found a few bits of wood and roots of heather for a fire. Paul soon had it lighted in the angle of the wall, where some shreds of roof would protect us from the snowflakes, falling faster now. He found a long slate and made a little bench for us to sit on in front of the fire. The daylight was fading as the afternoon advanced and the wind moaned gently round the ruins, but inside it was sheltered. We sat companionably on our little bench, aware of the great mass of Yr Wyddfa beyond, and the remains of the once busy quarry around us in that lonely place. The fire burned up and a pan full of water from the stream was soon boiling.

Shadows flickered on the walls and the brightness of the flames seemed to increase the darkness outside.
We talked while the last of the daylight drained away and the snow came faster, great flakes dashing past, so that there was almost a blizzard blowing. A few flakes fell on the fire and hissed on the hot sticks. At last the fire was dying and all the wood had been used. A heap of white ash lay on our improvised hearth, glowing a little and stirring in the draught. We had talked for a long time. It was cold and nearly dark. The wind still whistled by, but the snow had stopped and a few stars showed through rents in the clouds. We packed up the tea things and left our shelter. Our bodies grew warm as we swung down the road but wintry air was on our cheeks. For a few hours we had enjoyed the desertion of the hills and now were returning to our own corner of comfort and activity on their slopes. As we walked downhill, my hand was in Paul's warm clasp.

Ruth Janette Ruck .
First published in Hill Farm Story. Faber 1966.
Images:John Appleby

'Paul' Work is one of those virtually unknown romantic figures of Welsh climbing. Born on the flat Lancashire coastal belt in the pleasant little town of Formby, just outside Liverpool , he was a contemporary of the great Menlove Edwards-another Formbian-who attended the same school. He followed Menlove into climbing and was proposed and seconded for membership of the Climbers Club by Menlove himself and Colin Kirkus. Although he never matched the legendary pair in the technical department, he was a great explorer of the less frequented areas of Western Snowdonia where he established dozens of esoteric and infrequently climbed lower grade routes. In particular on the vegetated 400' cliffs of Diffwys on Moel Hebog, The equally verdant Aberglaslyn Pass, the cliffs of Moel Dyniewyd and Cwm Tregalen.
Probably his best known climbs-relatively speaking- are Christmas Climb on Dyniewyd and Canyon Rib above Aberglaslyn Pass. Paul Work and his wife Ruth lived in the shadow of Moel Dyniewyd where they ran a smallholding for many years until his death in the 1990's.

Darkness at Noon:The life and death of Nanda Devi Unsoeld

Following their magnificent summit success [on Nanda Devi] on September 1, Lou Reichardt, John Roskelley and Jim States descended to Camp 3 the following day. The second summit party of Pete Lev, Andy Harvard and my daughter Devi Unsoeld had been slated to occupy Camp 4 that day, but an ominous black cloud which settled slowly around the summit block persuaded them to take another rest day. As it turned out, the cloud lifted in the afternoon and the day became fine, making it easy for the summiteers to descend to Camp 3.

This reunion of our entire expedition was the first we had had since early in the climb, and it was a happy time as we congratulated our successful team members on their outstanding summit effort and heard their account of the difficulties they had overcome above Camp 4. Morale was extremely high. The weather seemed to be improving steadily and two more summit parties were poised for immediate attempts. Rascal (John Roskelley) and Jim both expressed worry about Andy's persistent cough and Devi's current diarrhea and flare-up of an inguinal hernia which had shown up originally on the second day of the approach march. However, Andy had been coughing during the whole trip and Devi had never been slowed by either diarrhea or hernia while carrying between the lower camps. Our situation seemed so ideal that within the next three days both Rascal and Lou headed for . Base Camp — Rascal intending to await our return from the summit and Lou to head out to try to make it back home to join his wife, Kathy, in time for the birth of their first child.

On September 3 then, the second summit team headed for Camp 4 while our third unit, consisting of John Evans, Nirmal, Kiran and me, trailed along to carry another tent and extra food to cache. With seven climbers trying to use the fixed ropes at once, the waits were too long and so we four turned back from the top of the third pitch. As we rappelled down the buttress and watched our second team slowly working their way upward, we marvelled at the kind of climbing which Rascal had performed while leading this stretch, going from 5.8 or 5.9 to direct aid and back, and in crampons.

At 7 p.m. Pete radioed that he had just arrived at Camp 4 after leaving Devi and Andy behind in order to steam ahead to get the camp ready and water going. At eleven o'clock we got word that Andy had pulled in and that Devi was on the last pitch. It took her until midnight to haul up over the final lip to Camp 4. It had been a long, slow day for her. The next day was brilliantly clear, but the summit party was not in condition to take advantage of it.

Bill Wynn

On September 5 our back-up party of four moved early to join Pete's group for a joint summit try the next day. We set 3 p.m. as the deadline by which we would have to reach the Sugar Delight Snowfield or else turn back. Picking up the cached food and gear increased our packs to dangerous proportions. Kiran and I did not reach the snowfield until around four o'clock and Evans and Nirmal were still a pitch below. The snowfall was increasing and so we were forced to drop our loads where we were and retreat, despite Kiran's protests. As it was, we didn't reach Camp 3 until 9 p.m. and all four of us were dragging from the effort.

September 6 dawned clear and bright, and since I felt remarkably strong despite our previous day's exertion, I decided to go all-out and join the party at Camp 4 for a summit attempt. They had radioed that Pete had made a reconnaissance yesterday to halfway to the summit before turning back in the bad weather. Kiran and Nirmal were too tired to make another effort so soon, and Evans was wiped out by an illness which later turned out to be the onset of hepatitis.

The familiar ground flowed smoothly past under my jumars until I reached the snowfield. I was elated to see that to the mid-point it had taken only two-and-three-quarter hours actual jumar time.
There I added more food and a tent from the cache and put on my crampons for the traverse into the gully (called 'Spindrift Alley' by the first party). My pack was very heavy now, but I found the beauty and boldness of the route totally exhilarating. The 400ft. of the gully were a ghastly slog with no certain footing in the depth of sugar snow which had accumulated. The final pitch to the lip at Camp 4 was 200ft. of vertical going with occasional small traverses to attempt to keep the rope away from the nastier rock teeth which protruded from the wall. It was a definite relief to heave myself over the snow lip at the top.

September 7 was a pure blizzard at Camp 4 and none of us moved from the tent. It was a day full of liquids and the easy talk which fills rest days at high altitudes. Devi was feeling better, but was still quite weak when measured against the energy output required for the summit try. It was decided that she should wait at Camp 4 while the rest of us made our try and then descend with us the same day to Camp three.However, that night was a bad one for Devi. Her stomach gener­ated gas in such quantities that she simply could not sleep and spent most of the night sitting up to belch it forth. By morning she was extremely tired. Because of the high winds and continuing snow, we decided to head down at noon and wait for better weather in the relative comfort of Camp 3. Pete, Andy and Devi had now been at 24,000ft. for nearly five days.

We were packed for departure when at 11.45 a.m. Devi was suddenly stricken. She had time only to say with great calm, "I am going to die," before she lapsed into unconsciousness. We tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but with no sign of success. Within fifteen minutes I felt her lips growing cold against mine and I knew that we had lost her. We continued our efforts to revive her for another half hour without result. As the enormity of our loss slowly sank in, the three of us could only cling to one another for comfort while tears coursed down our beards.

Willie Unsoeld
THE AMERICAN ALPINE JOURNAL 1977

Heroin Heroine......Cheryl Strayed's Wild-reviewed

In the world of outdoor writing,every so often a book comes along which transcends the genre and become a successful crossover work. Joe Simpson's Touching the Void was one such work. A book which might have been expected to remain within the climbing constituency,was suddenly being read by a mainstream audience with the film rights being sought after by such luminaries as Tom Cruise. Now US writer, Cheryl Strayed's Wild has repeated the formula. If Touching the Void's success reached the skies then Wild has touched the stratosphere.

Hugely successful in the States, the tale of a young emotionally broken woman hiking 1100 miles along the Western Pacific Crest Trail has been championed by such media giants as Ophra Winfrey who made the work her book of the week on her  nationally aired TV show. It has seen the film  rights bought by Hollywood superstar Reese Witherspoon and even has our own Nick Hornby-no stranger to film versions of books himself- praising it to the heavens in the blurb. If we were to apply the Guardianista Pseuds Corner cultural criteria to Wild- which suggests that any artist or work which achieves popular commercial appeal must by definition be rubbish-then this book would have them heaving up their organic muesli. However, for those who have an objective approach to culture, 'Wild-A Journey from lost to found' has to be considered a genuine classic work by a brilliantly gifted writer.

This is not some plodding diary of a backpacker, but  a searingly honest account of a human being who found her salvation on what became a brutal physical and emotional odyssey.
Cheryl Strayed was born into what might be described as a White Trash social background. A violent and abusive father who terrorized her beloved mother. His leaving led to an impoverished life on the fringes of society, where the author's family-an airy-fairy but devoted mother and her three children-moved from one cheap apartment to the next before Eddie arrived. Eddie,The stepfather who became the father her real Dad had never been and who with the proceeds of an  accident compensation settlement, buys the family a ruined homestead within 40 acres of scrubby bush in Minnesota. A rural setting where Cheryl and her family lived a life of hippy self sufficiency and subsistence work.

The catalyst for Cheryl's life changing trip in her twenties sprang from the sudden death of the mother she worshiped. Like a prairie fire, an aggressive cancer tore through her mother's body in weeks and she was dead at just 45. The huge sense of loss made even more painful by the almost immediate disintegration of her family. Within weeks of her mother's death, Cheryl's marriage began to collapse, triggered not least by her predilection for casual sexual encounters. Eventually she found herself washed up with a junkie boyfriend, spending her days shooting up and lost in a heroin haze.  During this period,while casually standing in a till queue,her hand alighted on a guidebook to the PCT. The rest as they say....

What marks out Wild as an exceptional book is not least the quality of the writing.  The author forgoes any temptation to indulge in turgid prose and just tells it how it is. Clearly and succinctly but absolutely vivid and powerful in its intensity and descriptive power. It's a magic formula which brings the book alive to the reader. There are moments when you are emotionally taken by the scruff of the neck and shaken like a rag doll. Animal lovers-particularly horse lovers- should perhaps skip pages 159 to 163. I was left pretty broken up after reading this passage.It was like being punched in the solar plexus.

Similarly, the encounter with redneck hunters who had stepped straight out of Deliverance in a wilderness glade was pretty intense. That's not to say Wild is just an emotional roller coaster which is purely focused on hardship and suffering. Cheryl's journey 'from lost to found' is brim full of positivity..the many warm and kind people she meets en-route, the acts of kindness and the moments of magic she experiences in the wild.

So many of these backpacking stories set in the wilderness tend to be as much a grinding plod for the reader as it was for the writer. Usually involving the same old predictable props.The excruciatingly heavy rucsac, food shortages, storms, intense heat, intense cold, blinding rain,disintegrating boots and of course... blisters. Then there is the usual cast of characters met en route. Weirdos,hermits,angels,regular guys and gals, and psychos. Not that the author doesn't use most if not all of the above elements. What makes Wild transcend the usual fare though, is the way the author interlaces her past life into the story. Referencing events and people who trespass into the here and now. Wild is not just a linear journey of 1100 rain lashed,sun baked miles, it is a tapestry of experience, laid out on the ground for all too see. One minute approaching a snowy canyon,the next in a back yard in Minnesota with a feral father glaring through the storm blind at his terrified children. It's this structure and the quality of the writing which could so easily have been mangled and misdirected in less gifted hands .

For those readers who prefer their outdoor writing more wholesome and traditional, then perhaps Wild is not for you. The author feffs and jeffs, has casual sex, smokes joints and has impure thoughts aplenty in the course of her journey. In fact, nothing out of the norm for any normal healthy woman in her mid twenties. But be warned, Alfred Wainwright or Hamish Brown it aint!

Overall, a wonderful life affirming book which should be considered a future classic. Let's hope Reese Witherspoon doesn't make a dog's dinner of the movie.

John Appleby:2013

John Piper: The Mountains of Wales....Review

J

Jagged rocks under Tryfan:1949-50


John Piper: the shape and tilt of rocks

Our main purpose in popping over to Manchester last week was to see the John Piper exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery.  Piper is an artist whose work I admire, but I have to admit that this exhibition – The Mountains of Wales – left me a little  underwhelmed.  Or maybe that should be overwhelmed? The Whitworth has brought together a large selection of paintings and drawings, all from a private collection, depicting mountains and rocks.  The trouble is that, taken together, the note sung by these works is a dark monotone: predominantly greys, browns and blacks with occasional splashes of colour.  As David Fraser Jenkins says in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, ‘Not one of the drawings looks as if it has been made on a sunny day.’

Piper began to draw and paint the landscape of North Wales during the Second World War. He was sent to Snowdonia in 1943 by the War Artists Advisory Committee, and rented a succession of cottages there between 1945 and 1956; two of them, at Maes Caradog and Pentre, were situated in Nant Ffrancon, the wild and beautiful glaciated valley followed by the A5 up from Betws-y-Coed through Capel Curig and on to Holyhead.

Piper’s commission from the War Artists Advisory Committee was to draw the interior of Manod Mawr quarry where artworks from the National Gallery and the Royal Collection were housed to protect them from the Blitz. He developed a love for Snowdonia’s dramatic scenery that would bring him back to the area a number of times during the following years.  ‘I felt then that I was seeing the mountains for the first time and seeing them as nobody had seen them before’, Piper said.

Bodesi-John Piper's farmhouse home under Tryfan

Don’t get me wrong: these large drawings and paintings made in Snowdonia are powerful works and reveal Piper’s close understanding of the landscape of the place, and the interest in geology that he developed during the time he spent there. Piper was inspired by the cwms, tuffs, peaks, lakes and cliff faces of the mountains, and he also studied  the geology of the mountains. While travelling around Snowdonla he would refer to A.C. Ramsay’s Old Glaciers of Switzerland and North Wales (1860), an outdated text by the 1940s, but one that provided Piper with enough detail to understand the basic geological features of Snowdonia. In many of the paintings and drawings, Piper has taken immense care to capture the rock striations, the exact placement of boulders and the jointing of the rock faces.

The Whitworth Gallery has done a great job, placing Piper’s Welsh mountain paintings and drawings in context, with supporting displays across three rooms. In one room there is a superb display of Welsh rock specimens and geologic guides; many of these are the rocks which Piper has depicted in his expressionistic manner in the neighbouring room.
Another room presents The ‘Sublime: Watercolours of the Welsh Landscape, a complementary exhibition of  18th and 19th century works from the Whitwoth collection by artists such as David Cox, John Varley and JMW Turner – the latter greatly admired by Piper.   Finally, Piper’s documentation of rocks and mountains are juxtaposed with contemporary land art. The final room contains two Richard Long stone sculptures: White Onyx, composed from quarried rocks of the mineral arranged in a line for the viewer to walk beside, and Tideless Stones, semi-circles of French paving stones made of dolomitic limestone.

 The rocks at Capel Curig-1950

Many of Piper’s paintings and drawings were the result of hours the artist out on the mountains, often in difficult weather.  Piper would produce sketches in ink while on the hills, which he would then turn into large-scale paintings when back in the studio.  Piper would study the rocks and mountain faces intently.
According to the exhibition catalogue......

 "Like artists before and since, he was drawn to the visual drama of the Welsh mountains, but he was also fascinated by their geology, as his artist’s eye explored ‘the bones and structure.'

Piper drove, cycled and climbed miles to reach his chosen locations where, however isolated, wet or windy the environment, he immersed himself in ‘the “lie” of the mountains’. He drew on the spot, using various materials including his fingers, later developing drawings into prints or paintings. His spontaneous, fluid techniques seem at one with the rough textures and colours of the mountains and rocky outcrops.

Piper wrote that:

" Each rock lying in the grass had a positive personality: for the first time I saw the bones and the structure and the lie of the mountains, living with them and climbing them as I was, lying on them in the sun and getting soaked with rain in their cloud cover and enclosed in their improbable, private rock-world in fog.'

Some of the paintings here – such as Cader Idris (1943), Welsh Landscape (1946) and Cwm Idwal (1949) – were, as the exhibition guide explains, accurate representations that could have featured in a guide book to the mountains, while many others – such as Jagged Rocks under Tryfan – were more abstract, bringing out the nature of the landscape and the brooding atmosphere of these wild places.

An exhibition panel observes that....

"  Colour is the language of the artist. This is particularly the case for John Piper who could make a mountain dazzle with hues of pink, blue or gold as in The Rise of the Dovey, 1943.(Below)  Piper knew that the colour of the landscape could be affected in a thousand ways by such factors as the light, time of day and year and environmental conditions including the weather. Piper wrote about the colour of rocks in his notes on Snowdonia, now in the Tate Archive. He intended to publish this as a book, but it never extended beyond note form. The following is a quote from these notes: ‘Against mountain grass or scree, against peaty patches near tarns, on convex slopes, in dark cwms, the same kind of rock can look utterly different, and changes equally violently in colour according to the light and time of year’.

'The rise of the Dovey' 1943 showing The Arans

The Rise of the Dovey, mentioned in that panel, was for me one of the most arresting paintings here. The handling of light and dark, with that burst of yellow sunlight on the rock face behind the tarn give the picture its dramatic atmosphere.  Piper has combined the dark hues of blue, purple and black with radiant golds, yellows and reds to bring to life the steep rock face of Aran Fawddwy. The title refers to Creiglyn Dyfi, the lake in the foreground, which is the source of the Afon Dyfi,  the river Dovey.

Best of all for me  was Piper’s stunning painting of Llanthony Abbey (in the Black Mountains in south Wales rather than Snowdonia).  The ruin, beautifully lit by a shaft of sunlight, is captured under a brooding sky.  JMW Turner made several paintings of the Abbey, including this watercolour, done in 1834.

It’s appropriate that you should leave the exhibition via the room containing the works by Richard Long, since it was Long who  changed the artist’s perspective from that of observing the landscape to journeying through it in his 1967 work A Line Made by Walking. Since then, Long has made sculptures during his many walks, the art being inseparable from his movement through the landscape. In this room there are two stone sculptures, White Onyx Line (1990) and Tideless Stones (2008), both made from quarried stone, shown alongside text works which distill the action and experience of a solitary walk into words.

The exhibition guide adds these words:

"There are no streams, no clouds, no mountains here. What we have are two groups of stones, a line and an arc, and thirty three words fixed to the walls. Richard Long has been somewhere and brought back for us these remnants of his experiences there. But these works of art aren’t poor substitutes for the walks that Long has made. They are meticulously selected and carefully arranged assemblages of stone and word which ask our imaginations to enter into a place like the one Long ventured within. We walk around, stand still, we look and think, and remember how it feels to be in the landscape. In creating works to show in galleries, Long asks us to participate in making the meaning of the work of art.'

Gerry Cordon:2013

First published on 'That's how the light gets in'

Mrs Whillans' Bacon Butties

When I worked at Ellis Brigham's shop in Liverpool a frequent visitor would be Don Whillans who would call in for a brew when he was on his way somewhere- often the Isle of Man to watch the TT races. He would turn up on his Triumph motorbike dressed like a Rocker from the 50's with leather boots topped out with white woollen socks and a leather jacket.

 One sunny day Pancho Molyneux and I were working in the shop and had both the front doors wide open to allow us to better watch the mini skirted girls walk down Bold Street and of course get some fresh air; the sudden roar of a bikes' exhaust took us by surprise and disbelief when the bike turned in off the road and rode straight into the shop,!...'Ay up youth is tha kettle on.. am gasping fer a brew?'

Don casually stood the bike on its stand and left it in the middle of the shop floor as if this was the normal thing you did when you needed to park your bike. After Don had had his brew and a few tales were swopped, and once freshly tanked up he bade us a 'Tarahh then'. We might not meet up again for months.

After I moved to live in Llanberis in the late seventies we met up more regularly and one such time is engrained in the memory as a classic. By this time Don and Audrey had moved to live in Llanfairfechan on the coast and ran a B&B guest house...well Audrey did while Don did his thing.

I had been climbing with Dave McDonald another close friend of Dons and we would all meet for a pint or several in the Vaynol in Nant Peris. This particular day, Don came over in his VW Camper van; this was always a bad sign as it usually meant a session was on the cards. The van meant that Don could have a few pints and kip in the back and not have to risk driving home tanked up.

 The idea was, that Dave and I would go and do a few routes and then call in for a pint after.The first mistake was meeting in the pub where the usual ' well just a swift one before we go then' was heard. Don was holding court and the three of us soon became a crowd. Little Ronnie Dutton- who was even shorter than Don, and his long suffering wife- a certain Barry Kershaw... more of him later...Brian Jones from The Vags, several members of The Ceunant Club and a host of hangers on. I seem to recall that Barry was barred and Ronnie was passing pints to him through the window, Barry was often getting barred for some misdemeanour or other, usually involving some poor unsuspecting bugger who just happened to annoy him. Lots of people annoyed Barry.

 I remember one evening when a guy was elbowing himself in and trying to get served and was standing next to him,smoking.This was bad- Barry hated smoking with a vengeance- he turned to the guy and looking at his packet of fags on the bar asked if it was alright if he had one, the guy nodded,so Barry promptly ate the whole packet. Another evening there was an Alsatian hanging around the bar and was annoying Barry by snarling at him rather threateningly, now Barry was a big bloke but this took some doing, he picked the beast up by the snout, bit it on the nose, told it to fuck off and that was it; the dog never bothered him again.

By now,the swift one became several swift ones and Ronnie was splashing the cash. He had re roofed a house for someone and at the house there just happened to be a rather large boat on the drive, the owner of the house was away when the job was being done so Ronnie sold the boat to someone, and pocketed the cash, as you do. By this time we were well on the way to a major session, after about the sixth pint someone suggested that we should go climbing as it was such a nice sunny day. Now standing up was a problem let alone to try and drag your way up a route, but we all decided that we were fine.

Dave Mac and I had turned up in his Citroen 2cv and the gear was in the back. We thought bollocks to walking to the crag we'll drive up the Pass and walk up to the Wastad. We promptly dived into the car where Dave drove it straight into the wall opposite. We got out rolling about laughing, pulled the wing off the tyre and drove off rather erratically towards the pass. There were about six of us in the group that eventually made it this far. Don was voted the leader so off we set, up the scree to the base of the crag. Most of us were having trouble walking without falling over.

What happened next was rather alarming, we were at the bottom of the crag falling down and generally feeling pretty pissed all round when someone suggested we should do a route now that we had actually made it the base of the crag. Looking up made you a bit dizzy so we sort of started where we were, Don declined and settled down for a nap, so we geared up- well we put our rock boots on- and not much else.Someone suggested that Wrinkle was good value for a V. Diff and it might be a tad risky to try anything a bit harder. Now we had figured out that falling off a V. Diff soloing is not any different to falling off a HVS soloing  but this fact never got mentioned, so we duly set off.

There was a line of us trying our best not fall off on to each other and more urgently not to fall off and hit the deck. Now this classic three star route is not difficult technically but does have a nice steep little traverse on it to add a bit of spice, well I can tell you with six pints of Robinsons in you it’s a piece of piss!  We all somehow reached the top of the route without dying and set off for the base of the crag. Whillans was still there waiting for us but had his head on a rucksack and was fast asleep in the sunshine. We did Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would get the honour of waking him.

After some sunbathing and a bit of sobering up we decided to head back to the pub, shockingly when we arrived back it was shut- unheard of when there was a session on and the chance of a lock in. Apparently Barry, who had remained, had got into a fight and the police had been called, so the pub had emptied pretty sharpish.

This was not unusual where Barry was concerned and had happened many times before. Once the police were called and he couldn’t be found anywhere, it transpired that he was about 40ft up the Ash tree that stood in the grounds, another time he was actually hiding under the patrol car. I remember Don telling me that he had visited Barry at his house where he wanted to show Don a motorbike that he was restoring,it transpired that the bike was a Norton Commando and it was on the first floor of his house, Don enquired as to how it got there,’ oh I carried it up youth’. If I remember rightly he lived in the Conwy valley somewhere and it would be not unusual for him to turn up for a session and walk home over the tops.

Don suggested to Dave Mac and I that we should head back to Penmaenmawr for a brew, despite having drunk lots of beer we duly arrived at the house to be greeted by Audrey who was busy in the kitchen, ‘ay up lass get a brew going and put some bacon on we’re famished'

At home Don was a different man, in the living room there was a huge tank full of tropical fish which were a joy to him, he was an accomplished scuba diver and had often dived in the Red Sea and had a great interest in the various species found there. A while later Audrey came in with three huge mugs of tea- I did notice that Dons' mug was bigger than ours- and a large plate full of bacon sandwiches.

We didn’t go to the pub that evening but stayed at Don’s and generally dossed about, eventually Ronnie turned up with a now sober Barry in tow, he had managed to avoid capture from the police by hiding amongst the grave stones in the church,we drank lots of tea and were fed plates of toast by Audrey who remained in the kitchen for most of the time.

In the sober light of the morning someone suggested that we should all go swimming This was at the time when the new A55 was being built so we had to leg it over the road works and the mainline rail track to reach the water. When we got there of course the water was about 2° and not one of the big brave boys were willing or able to get above their ankles. When we got back to the house Don said ‘ave been watching yer all through me bins, ya big nancies, get dry, let’s go fer a pint’

I would often call at the Whillans household if I was passing and had many a brew in the kitchen, often it would be just me and Audrey as Don would be away in some far corner of the globe.

It was a very sad day when I heard that Don had passed away and the magic lamp dimmed a little more on the crazy gang. At the funeral in Bangor there was hardy standing room outside the crem let alone inside.After the service Davey Mac and I quietly slipped away, we couldn’t face a pint without the little bugger getting his oar in, so we went for a bacon butty at a roadside vendor instead.... didn’t come close to Audreys though.

' An then tha piano stool collapsed'...Photo:Adrian Bailey

Ken Latham 2013