When the rains came central Snowdonia might lay cloud banked
and brooding for weeks on end. Its inhabitants displaying a type of innate
pagan madness rarely seen in city dwellers; at parties people quasimodoed
through slate lintelled lime washed doorways, questing along uneven passageways-
searching out warmth from the hot knife stove.
Teams looking for rock action migrated from Llanberis to
escape the debilitating drizzle, taking solace at Tremadog or Gogarth and whilst
each of these enclaves retained a particular allure there was a growing
realisation amongst climbers that the limestone crags surrounding Llandudno’s
Great and Little Ormes situated within what Andy Pollit called ‘the rain
shadow’, had slumbered largely unnoticed since the 1970s when some spirited
exploratory probes where instigated by the Rev Bob Shepton and Rowland Edwards
respectively. In particular Edwards’ routes on the Little Orme including
Detritus and Wall of the Evening Light although largely aided, these where
unquestionably big adventures. Out there on guano lashed 100 metre or more sea
cliffs beyond the ken of twitching net curtains on local housing estates. At
times alone except for the changing tide.
Looking in from sea it would become
clear that the Little Orme crags rise dramatically from undercut caves towards
grass embossed summit slopes reaching termination at a forlorn lookout bunker.
They are, it would appear, colossal in comparison to the crags of the Great
Orme maybe a mile a way to the right, yet this contradiction in terms is subdued
in part when the eye rest on Castell y Gwynt nestling aloof in steepness
sandwiched between almost vertical bank strata, off sided below the lighthouse.
There is a photo a lean man in Helly Hansen fibre pile and EBs,
bearded, his countenance reflects concern, the torso almost horizontal he is
reaching over a roof high on the crag. Seldom seen, this image was taken in
September 1979 by Keith Robinson and shows John Redhead on the second pitch of
The Bittersweet Connection. That same autumn this team- on occasion accompanied
by the Buddhist chanting of Malcolm Boater- also climbed Plas Berw another E5 on
this steep testing ground which as the year rolled over into the 1980s firmly
cemented the crag’s reputation as one of those places that went to the heart of
the matter, which despite varying amounts of fixed gear could in any way be
confused with a sport climbing venue. Such a factor could be easily discerned
by standing shivering below New Dimensions in a light rain, taking care not to
glissade wet grass slopes below the towering world of elephant tufas and
confusingly angled grooves.
Such a slope, it should be mentioned, appears to
end in an abrupt horror drop whose termination although concealed from sight
nevertheless further imbues an all ready charged situation with an initial
sense of lurking fear, especially if considering climbing here in less than
ideal conditions.
If you were the type of climber daunted by high E grades but
still comfortable within the VS range, it is likely you would ignore the Gwynt
and gravitate towards The Little Orme’s great zawn in pursuit of imagined
lengthy slab climbs (as long as Cloggy’s great slab it was said) since by the
early 1980s Roland Edward’s interim guide, innocuous enough in it’s green cloth
cover, presented such offers. One route, Rabble Rouser, involved the climber in
depths of unstableness rarely plumbed, and after committing to marginal
unpleasantness shared with the first few pictures of the great flake, becomes a
sustained unrelenting grass nightmare where, despite it’s intention, the
original description seems reluctant to divulge information. Looking up it
could just be that the ground above appears so uninviting that it is difficult
to match reasoned documentation with territory encountered by the eye.
Experience on this territory requires a certain type of mindset and a great
deal of steadiness by both members of the party lest the outcome descend into
quagmires ordained by awkward retreat. It seems just to balance any merits
apportioned during overall ascent if indeed they exist so that in so far that
Rabble Rouser is concerned it might be said that all action takes place in a
fantastic situation with degrees of exposure well loved by most exponents of
this remarkable craft, yet here the plaudits end, and when embarking on pitch six
I recall that we had recourse to using a peg hammer as if it were an ice pick,
since in order to ‘send’ the last forty metres it seemed in survival’s best
interest to treat the green severity now confronting us as a hybrid ice climb
which when considered in the amber glow of hindsight, would probably benefit
from the grade of hard very marvellous!
In essence it would be the places in between Little Orme’s
adventurous great zawn and Great Orme’s wind blasted gothic sentinel at Castell
y Gwynt which would receive most attention and occupy the thrust of much single
pitch and new sport climbing on the Ormes in the 1980s. Entering climbers’
psyche most immediately in the form of Parisella’s Cave, Pen Trwyn and then of
course the underworld in waiting hidden below the marine drive L.P.T..
By 1983 there were people bivouacking in the caves then
climbing all day, sometimes for weeks on end. Their yellow tattered karrimats
adorned with names of their hitching destinations in big letter black and red
marker so that one side might read Llandudno, North Wales, Llanberis, whilst
the reverse, revealing their supersaver
return choice typically signalled Sheffield or Leeds. Fully extended these
scrolls often contained evidence of climbers pilgrimage and, if you understood
the hieroglyphics that read Boux, La Pallud, Provence, their names might
trigger memories of wine soaked toking scenes in star swept croissant mooned
camp sites after days spent in opera vertical Edlinger dreams, pumping sun
bleached white stone, Luna Bonged under the Ctullah cool Necronomicron
rim.
The thousand mile of roads leading
to continental lavender scented Nirvana did not come with a guarantee of safe
passage and indeed might involve hitchers in realms of hassle rarely imagined
before setting out, including bizarre sexual interviews whilst drivers
ascertained their chances of re-enacting subtitled Midnight Cowboy scenes
behind lonely Autoroute du Soleil services beyond the glare of heavy goods
wagon trains. Then there were tales of cruising Mrs Robinson style femmes
fatales seeking favours from robust youths and hasty marches via wrong turned
slip roads escaping Moroccan sailors after dope deals gone wrong on the
outskirts of Marseille. Such episode were not of course the special preserve of
Europe and whilst relatively rare, incidents of a similar ilk also occurred or
were alleged to occur in the UK.Presenting hitchers in general with greater or
lesser degrees of inconvenience in their time on the road.
Whatever the travel arrangements, by 1983 Pen Trwyn’s growing
reputation as a hard climbing venue with plenty to go at together with it’s
alternative status to Gogarth or Trem, drew various teams to what Paul Williams
dubbed ‘ the Pen Trwyn patrol’, as they walked the ten minutes or so back and
forth along the Marine Drive for rendezvous or refreshment at Parisella’s café
where in their Italian welsh glory Mrs Parisella and her twin daughters were to
become part of the scene and that least as sought after by some protagonists as
the harsher technical challenges encountered on precipitous unstable top out
limestone.
In contrast to generally secluded climbing experience within
Llanberis slate enclaves, Pen Trwyn rendered climbers’ actions continually open
to public scrutiny so that dog walkers, courting couples, strolling pensioners
and bored children strapped back seat in curb crawling family saloons regarded
or ignored climbers antics with equal measure. Such exposure led at times down
roads of fanciful interaction, ‘why are you going up that rock?’ Reply, ‘It’s
the first step in our Everest training’. Ludicrous and amusing as these
interludes might be, all routes climbed or attempted above Marine Drive place
onus on climbers to maximise extreme caution when encountering any loose rock
or vegetation lest passers by suffered unexpected bombardment a scenario
inevitably resulting in an all out climbing ban, Everest training or no,
initially many lines were done without lower offs , involving leaders in heart
stopping finishes over treacherous grassed mini tiers seldom less than ninety
degrees with poor on non existent protection and inventive belays well back.
Once atop the cliff, teams either abseiled down or walked a ways off to find
convenient descents which in the Trwyn enclave were unfortunately a rare
commodity. This time consuming procedure pointed towards climbers’ traditional
backgrounds where these tactics represented the status quo, so that for reasons
best left to psychiatrists, lower offs either from makeshift loops in abseil
ropes ( the cleaning of routes from the top down was not unusual) or
strategically positioned bolts did not become the norm until a major crag overhaul
spearheaded amongst others by Steve Mayers in the 1990s. Some early routes did
however benefit from the odd bolt runner which marked a departure from purely
traditional values whilst at the same time providing quality climbs where
leaders still generally relied on natural ‘pro’ and personal involvement on Firefly
in March 1983 proved this to be so.
Having made initial Trwyn acquaintance with Mel Griffiths,
where after discussing bolt strength under various forces, we had conducted an
experiment whose simple principle relied on clipping a 50 metre rope to a bolt
on Mayfair before attaching its free end over a tow bar then driving off along
Marine Drive so producing a sort of high tension catapult which amazingly did
not pull out and decapitate onlookers- it was with some relief that a far less
dangerous enterprise later that day culminated in an ascent of Plumb Line.
Prior to this two climbs with John Redhead, the first an unusually loose flake
line in a sheltered cave complex, The Separate Elephant would, I speculated, be
rarely repeated and another all together more conventional though excellent
quality fingery E5 6a near the remains of an old pillbox. The Homspunk was a
ground up stamina test forced in bitterly cold January conditions when, on a day
remaining strange from sunlight, a severe wind had chastened the crags which had
unsurprisingly become our sole preserve.
Born on a steel blue sea these gales soon blew in the Ides
of March and once subsided allowed hibernation release for candidates suffering
winter withdrawal symptoms from the cult of the steep. Dave Towse had already
placed a bolt on a line that cuts through overlaps and headed towards a
fascinating groove which looked possible to fill with good wires. In exchange
for belay penance on another project merely a two minute walk along the same
terrace, Dave handed me the lead on the one bolt eyed undercut groove. Fantastic
was the undercling that a climber could grasp, bouldery and bunched up at first
but with just enough edge where it mattered. The rough limestone could be
trespassed, despite initial seepage, by forceful pulls and careful foot tricks
so that once beyond the double shot espresso start, a sort of swaying movement
twisted sideways and reaching up as if to layback, found holds better suited for
simple pull up, which drew me into the shallowness of the groove’s narrow
finale. Here after placing bomber runners amidst the faintest hint of a pump, I
carried on in finishing mode just as a car drove by, it’s stereo maxed out with
Spandau Ballet’s Chant No1, such was the scene on Firefly which opened an
account soon swelled by a gathering pace as teams keen on crimping down hard
began making their mark.
Dave’s new line Flakeaway at E5 6b could be found on the
wall right of Plumbline and involved tenuous climbing on roughly the same micro
edges as those used for footholds. Harsh though this proved, we had far more
trouble on it’s sister route which defined by a squiggle shaped groove,halfway, also attacked the wall right of Plumbline but this time starting only a few
metres from it’s parent. Rappelling the line I took advantage of a small thread
in an undercut flake and equipped it with a yellow taped sling (the canary’s
tail). Kev Howitt had joined us in Bangor then had driven to the Orme as if an
invisible lead weight was somehow gluing his foot hard down on the accelerator
and though climbing well, neither he, Dave nor I could fathom out shapes
required on the wall above the midway groove cracks. Lowering off small wires
each climber in turn supported by shouts of encouragement and banter during
their attempt, found themselves back on the ground. Desperate for a brew I
resolved for one last try before café break and dispensing with the now
practised lower section more easily found myself eyeing the thread with triple
paranoia ( from the safety of the ab it had looked quite decent).
From here
perhaps driven by fear of taking a big lob and closing on quality first ascent
I somehow fluked over less than easy exit ground that had it sustained itself
longer, may have rewarded onlookers with the spectacle of a long plummet. Easy to name The Scary Canary settled down at
E5 6b and after several ascents it was perhaps inevitable that the thread
runners holding power would be tested by flyers. In one such episode
destruction was the result so that future ascentionists were rewarded with a
more encouraging bolt runner in the placing of which our original team played
no part yet hardly had cause to contest.
As the year wore on and the Pen Trwyn patrols extended their
remit routes, doubled then tripled on both Ormes as climbers including the local
Lyon brothers Dave and Chris, Norman Clacher, Jerry Moffatt, Ron Fawcett, Andy
Pollitt, Bill Wyman, the Midlands based Crook brothers, Mel Griffiths and of
course Master of Cermonies Paul Williams without whom no proper climbing scene
in Wales during the 1980s could be complete, mingled with other brethren
producing classics and pushing standards the likes of which had hitherto only
been known in Roland Edwards’ dreams and as Menlove observed many years earlier,
was in any case where all great climbing took place.
“If you know how to whistle just put your lipstick together
and blow.” I had said in soliloquy.
Martin Crook:2015 (previously unpublished)
