Fantasia

I HAVE a dream of a perfect piece of landscape — everything is what I want it to be, green meadow here, rocky limestone towers there and the odd gingerbread house dotted around the lower bits. Its a model, like those Lego land villages, but much, much better; more realistic and more sympathetic, yet being so perfect it is much less possible, a more genuine fantasy. It is alpine, with wild rocky towers, tall dark conifers and rounded green meadows; all these exquisite features are linked by narrow, but well made and marked, winding pathways. The surfaces are carefully tended like the best Swiss and Austrian examples, deliberately winding through changing and challenging landscapes yet making access easy — a real delight to follow. 'You see what I mean, its an old hobby horse of mine; I would prefer our hills, especially the popular areas, to have access created by easy well marked paths. It would destroy a few people's idea of a wilderness experience; it may lead a few tourists into weather they can't handle, but it would give many more a moving hill experience just like so many British walkers and mountaineers get in the alps. 

But to continue, for this is about a journey through this exquisite land. It's about a run, or rather a jog, not because I want to pass quickly, but because I want to carry little or nothing and I always want to see around the next corner. I alight from a toy train at a station which is a milk churn stand in a field, it is 8.00 a.m. on a surprisingly warm October morning and the way is obvious. A metalled path winds enticingly upwards through indescribably green rising meadows towards a little village and onion dome church a kilometre or so away. There are no field boundaries but carefully spaced pointed wooden toy town farms, balconies bedecked with flowers, indicate a carefully apportioned landscape. At the onion dome village a small cable car rises a thousand metres over more meadow, then forest and finally limestone towers to the final peak on a long fang like ridge of limestone. I ignore the car and jog gently upwards, the ascent so well graded and picturesque that I barely notice the 500m of climb I've done so far. 

The metalled footpath and pastures finish at a little but and cafe below the first of the white screes and crags of the ridge above. I walk the next 500m of ascent, intrigued by the crags through which the now strong path zig zags. The limestone is not dolomite but shining white Yorkshire stuff with the bedding tilted on edge giving crags of white sheet like slabs made easy by numerous lines of jugs and flakes eaten into the surface by water flowing down the surface —everything looks about V.Diff or easier. Below the final tower containing the top station of the cable car a path traverses off rightwards to gain the ridge; I take this and in a few hundred metres I'm jogging along a perfect little path that winds along the undulating crest of what is really a quite sharp limestone ridge. On either side a couple of hundred metres of cliff give way to steep forested slopes — down the side I haven't seen before, the forests continue down for over a thousand metres to flat valley bed containing a large milky green river. The ridge may be exposed, but the path constantly weaves from one side to the other giving little time to appreciate the exposure on any one flank. Small stunted junipers smell nice and impart a garden like atmosphere to this high place. 

This dream like situation continued for three kilometres — its called the Hoher Kasten ridge — until a tiny grassy saddle was reached after which all progress was stopped by a monolith limestone tower rising from the saddle. Half on the saddle, half hanging in space was a tiny hut and veranda. I stopped for a coffee and thought the veranda the most exposed situation I'd so far come across, with a view vertically down to the Rhine, and across to the little republic of Liechtenstein. The escape from the but and saddle was signposted — a cable led diagonally around the smooth buttress marking a line of chipped boot holds. Around the buttress the path reappeared swooping in and out of gullies on natural sloping ledge lines. The next three kilometres passed in seconds, the path a perfectly formed earth ribbon gently descending as it traversed the steep rocky hillside below the rocky crest before dropping sharply to a magnificent rock saddle at the junction of five paths the Saxer Lucke. To the right is the narrow defile of the dark green Falensee backed by the vicious looking Hundstein while ahead the route climbed ever so gently through scree floored valley below the quite striking Kreuzberge towers, five or six distinct fangs of gleaming white sheet limestone. 

Easy climbing leads for two kilometres to a col at 2000m. Here all is pure white, either rock, scree or limestone slabs, such is all land above 200m in this little area, the Alstein. Turning right onto a short climb gave access to the Chreialp ridge and a three kilometre traverse through a seemingly impossible area of broken rock, cliffs and towers, but the path led through this high level chaos with virtually no rise or fall. Half way along a gentle drop led to the Zwinglipass before climbing slightly over and through the jagged summit towers of Altmann and a sharp drop to a saddle of red scree and red stone but on the Rotsteinpass. A bowl of goulash here and off I ran along a beautifully easy smooth rock path leading to the Lisengrat, a sharp ridge abutting the white rock pyramid of Santis, at 2500m, the highest lump of rock in the area. Once on the Lisengrat the path becomes a switchback of chimneys, ledges and cables as one dives in and out of towers of the vertically walled ridge. Suddenly it was over at a perfectly clean rock saddle below a 200m, easy angled slab leading to the summit of Santis. Downhill before me stretched the return leg of the journey, another ridge system containing the Altenalp towers and finally Ebenalp. First however the path descended a cliff by cables and cut steps to gain a steep little blue glacier, the Blauschnee, with an easy groove to follow across its slopes to reach the Rossegg valley, a gentle cwm of pure white scree. 

The path through this lot had been carefully created by flour graders sifting the big lumps of scree from the path leaving only a perfect surface through this wilderness. Gentle downhill running led to a traverse through a hole in the Altenalp ridge after which the path followed the ridge system for three kilometres all the while descending gently as it wove in and out of crazy but solid limestone pinnacles and fangs. It took just three quarters of an hour to cover the most improbable piece of ground from the summit of Santis to the end of the ridge at the Schafler hut; nearly five kilometres of rock.A sharp grassy descent to a saddle led to a gentle ascent over the rocky but rounded Ebenalp, the rod covered in sweet smelling shrubs There is a cable car down frorr Ebenalp, but I chose to run down the remarkable descent route through the summit cliffs and so to my starting point at Schwende.

 The legendary Pete Livesey on Downhill Racer

A grassy path leaves the summit heading ominously for the 200m cliffs surrounding the plateau, but disappears into a funnel shaped depression before the edge is reached. Steps lead down into an icy cool cave with daylight just filtering through from both ends. A long descent through the sizable cavern breaks out onto the cliff face at an alcove and ledge system into which is built a church. An airy traverse along the ledge leads to a but built beneath overhangs in the cliff face. A ladder from the but drops into the forest followed by three kilometres of delightful downhill work through dark forest and meadow into the valley at Schwende and the toy town trains. It had been a six hour dream of most intensive mountain experience in a landscape as near to fairy tale stuff as one could imagine. The route is of course real, from the Apenzell side of the Alpstein range in N.E. Switzerland. It could be done at walking speed in a day (guidebook time 15 hours) but most parties stop over at least once en route.

Pete Livesey: 1990. First published in Climber and Hillwalker-October 1990

The Drasdo Brothers......Northern Expressions

The Drasdo Brothers- Neville (left) and Harold outside Lakeland's Old Dungeon Ghyll at one of the last Bradford Lads reunions they attended together.

‘Derision is the burden that the avant-garde learns to bear; but in 1947 climbing had an oral culture, remarkable for the start of the post war ascendancy of northern working class British climbers’ Harold Drasdo

 

Imagine you are 14 years old, you have been climbing for three years since 1947 and in the winter of 1949/1950- March to be precise- you meet in the Hangingstones Quarry at Ilkley, a 20 year old from Bradford, just returned from Athens, on National Service. Tall and gangling, he is however so knowledgeable about climbing and climbers, as you begin to realise whilst chatting in a corner attempting to stay out of the biting cold wind, ever present on Ilkley Moor in winter. You hang on his every word. You complain about the weather and the cold, but your new found friend declares he has 'been dreaming about being here in these conditions for the last two years' whilst soldiering in Greece, where 'the heat had been unrelenting’. 

 

There were no other climbers present that day, it being mid-week (the average worker was still employed six days a week in March 1950). I had bunked off school and my new found friend was on demob leave, so we agreed to climb together. Our first route being the ‘Fairy Steps’ a Hard Very Difficult, which was climbed in boots, followed by ‘Nailbite’ another Very Difficult , and finishing with ‘Josephine’ a Severe wearing rubbers. It is hard for me now so many years later to wonder what I must have been like as a 14 year old, but my partner that day wrote later I was a ‘streetwise youth’. As we departed to head home he to walk over the moor to Dick Hudson’s to catch a bus to Bradford, me descending to Ben Rhydding for a bus to Leeds I learnt that he was Harold Drasdo, soon to be known in local climbing circles as ‘Dras’.

'Dras' when he was working at Derbyshire's White Hall Outdoor Centre

 

Drasdo is an unusual name (there is a town by that name in Germany south of Berlin) , and so it stuck with me, and over the ensuing weeks meeting at Ilkley and other West Yorkshire outcrops, and coalescing into a larger group of activists, we became known as 'The Bradford Lads'. Several of whom besides the Drasdo’s; such as Pete Greenwood, Don Hopkin and Alf Beanland, were also to develop amongst the lead climbers of our area, and later until his death in the Alps in 1953, our best known group member was Arthur Dolphin. Nobody of my age was to my knowledge climbing regularly in that era, unlike today with the spread of indoor climbing, but in 1950 the popular image of climbing being it was highly dangerous, and in retrospect it actually was.

One element now revolutionised was the basic equipment then in use, another was a lack of instruction, for the only pool of knowledge was held by its regular participants and you learnt on the rock by example or experience as you progressed. And also perhaps you might have managed to obtain a copy of the then recently published Penguin paper back, ‘Climbing in Britain’ by John Barford for the princely sum of one shilling (ten pence). And before the modern reader thinks that was an incredible cheap bargain, Dras told me at his first job as a 16 year old he was paid £1 a week. But he did enjoy two weeks holiday, which made him feel lucky to be so employed! 

 

Petrol rationing finished in 1950 and we discovered hitch hiking. And so after having perforce needed to concentrate on our local outcrops, we began to travel far and wide with the Lake District and Langdale in particular being our Mecca. We stayed in barns and the one at Wall End Farm in Langdale became known the length and breadth of Britain. Often I was in the company of Dras and eventually I met his younger brother Neville. They both made major contributions to climbing, together and individually but for me it was my thinking, my education they affected most. Like me they were both scholarship Grammar School boys, leaving at 16 years of age, and working at low paid jobs, Dras as a clerk in a Health Unit and Neville an opticians; but studying at night school and eventually gaining entry into Higher Education, their outstanding later careers being founded on an impressive ability to master facts. 

Cairngorms 1958.

Dras was reading widely from the first, and I can remember him as we spent long winter nights in a doss under Castle Rock, in Thirlmere recounting to me the story of the first ascents of the North Face of the Eiger, and the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses. I was so smitten by these stories, I sent to Paris for Anderl Heckmair’s ‘Les Trois Derniers Probleme Des Alpes’. Which despite five years of French at school I struggled with to make sense of the stories, but Dras was reading much wider than mountaineering books, and we began to think of him as an intellectual! I can also remember him recounting stories to me about hitch hiking, and one article in particular he valued highly, was written by the American poet and mountaineer Gary Snyder.

Through such sharing I found out that Dras, like me, had started climbing at Ilkley in 1947. Why Ilkley? If you lived in Bradford or Leeds, and relied on public transport, then it was easiest to reach at a time when the dislocation caused by the war was still a major factor in our everyday lives; food, clothes, and fuel were all still rationed. To visit Almscliff was much more difficult than Ilkley. For me it meant a bus to Bramhope then tramp the miles from there to reach the Crag. Despite such difficulties there was a keen spirit of adventure in our approach which was essentially light hearted. Being so much younger than my companions I was sometimes the butt of their humour, one such instance was when they contacted The Bradford Telegraph and Argus and joined me as a member into their ‘Nig Nog club'! It seems incredible now that this could have existed in a City with a high ethnic population, but this was a young person’s club sponsored by that newspaper.

I read out my ‘joining’ letter to my older companions the weekend after receiving this by post in Leeds 6. ‘Dear Dennis, we welcome you as a ‘Nig Nog’ into our club, please try and make all your friends ‘Nig Nog’s’ as well’. They laughed long and hard at this, but I got my own back. We lived next to a chemist and I managed to obtain some medicine bottles, and labels. I poured some coloured liquid into these and handed one to Alf Beanland, Dras, Greenwood & Co. On the label I had printed, ‘Peter Pan Liquid Jollop for Ageing Youths’ I think in those early years of our friendship two climbs stand out. In September 1952 with Dras in the lead, we managed to pioneer one of the Lake District’s hardest climbs of that era ‘The North Crag Eliminate’ at Castle Rock; which is still graded Extremely Severe. This was in retrospect an unusual climb, for one of its pitches meant climbing a large yew tree, then from its top most branches launching onto the rock face to make a difficult upward rightward traverse to reach a secure ledge, below the intimidating top pitch. 

Castlenaze 1957

For me, being at that date a small 16 years old, it was the moves from off the tree I found the most difficult of the route. This climb illustrated for me that whilst Dras was not the most naturally gifted performer in our group- Greenwood and Dolphin being more so- he was the most determined, and once he set his mind to a task he was usually successful. 

 

Another memorable day in 1952 was when Dras and I climbed Hangover on Dove Crag, and noticing on a buttress to its left hand side, an impressive line, which commenced with a steep crack. Dras set off up this, but it was seeping wet inside its edges, and some way up this he managed to hang a sling and I lowered him down. I then tried to lead this, but could not reach as far as Dras and hanging by the sling he had placed I could see that the next moves would be beyond me, so I too then baled-out. The Following weekend I met Joe Brown in Langdale, and I told him about the outstanding difficult line we had discovered on Dove Crag.

He was very interested, and with Don Whillans visited and ascended the route which they called Dove Dale Grooves. A route so difficult for its era, that a decade elapsed before it was repeated. The reader may be surprised, but Dras was not annoyed with me about blabbing about our great find to Joe, for we both recognised that if any climbers could have pioneered the route at that time, probably only Brown and Whillans were capable of achieving such a result.

 

The death of Dolphin and the opportunities that developed for some in the 1950s for entry into higher education, or to better ones prospects in work further afield would eventually lead to a break-up of The Bradford Lads. Dras managed to study in Nottingham and qualify as a teacher. This then led to a career in Outdoor Education, first in Derbyshire at Whitehall, but then as the Warden of the Towers Education Centre near to Capel Curig . But throughout he continued to explore and pioneer new rock climbs. A major development, in which he and his brother Neville were key figures, was the discoveries they made over several visits to The Poisoned Glen in Donegal. This came about by Neville exploring climbing possibilities in that part of Ireland in 1953, returning home and convincing Dras about possible new routes that might be found in that valley, which they visited in 1954. Over many visits in following years they did manage to climb 20 new routes, perhaps the two which have become best identified with them being The Berserker Wall and the Direct on Bearnas Buttress?

Donegal Days

With his outstanding literary abilities Dras was invited by the FRCC to edit their first ever guidebook to the Eastern Crags, an area in which he had been an original pioneer with classic routes like ‘Grendel’ (VS 4b) in Deepdale. The volume he produced in 1957 was a ‘big effort’ on his part, for without transport and often minus a climbing partner, much of his checking and routing was achieved solo, and taking these problems into account, the guidebook he produced was first class. Transport was a big problem in our early climbing days, for as the 1950’s progressed hitch hiking became too slow and crowded (so many other competitor’s out on the road also seeking lifts) and therefore many climbers moved onto motor bikes.

Dras was one of these, but initially he did not display great driving skill. He bought an ex War Department machine, for I believe about £40, and drove it up to Langdale. With me riding pillion we set off from the Old Dungeon Ghyll Car Park to ride up to Wall End Barn, with our fellow Bradford Lads cheering our departure. At the first sharp bend leading up to our destination he lost control, wobbled across the road and hit a wall. I was lucky and landed on a grass verge, but Dras was injured, fracturing an arm quite badly. So it heralded for us a return to hitch hiking.

In 1971 Dras edited a new edition of the Lliwedd guide for the Climbers’ Club having been elected to that organisation in 1966. Taking this on, was truly a brave decision for despite its huge bulk and ease of access it was seen even at that date as something of a backwater, whereas once in the early years of the 20^th century it was at the cutting edge of climbing development in this country. Maybe it might yet be again, but Dras had to overcome the curse of Lliwedd in preparing this volume, for its two previous editors, Archer Thompson in 1909, and Menlove Edwards in 1936 both ended their lives, committing suicide by poisoning. He remains however the only such guidebook editor to have published such a volume in both The Lake District and Snowdonia.

Latter days: HD on the esoteric Tremadog VS 'Wanda',where a basking adder held up progress!

Established in Wales and a key figure in the development of Outdoor Education, Dras decided to put his thoughts about this into print and he produced a seminal work, ‘Education and the Mountain Centres’. This was a thoughtful analysis of the role of risk and the experience of an exposure to nature in the development of young minds; in 1972 when it was first published it made a major impact on this then fast developing field of education. It remained in print for many years and sold hundreds of copies nationwide. A more eclectic work that Dras was involved with in this decade was a joint publication with the US climber and academic Michael Tobias, ‘The Mountain Spirit’ published in 1980. This was in retrospect an unusual and surprising work, a potpourri of articles, poems, and anthology, and some pieces written especially for the book by David Roberts and Arne Naess and by the authors. It was full of Zen and Tao, including a piece by HSU who visited every mountain range in eastern China in the 16^th century. It was met with such a mixture of like and dislike that it remains one of the most unusual books to be published in that era. 

 

A person who was impressed by ‘The Mountain Spirit’ however was a friend in Manchester, who at that date was a drama student, Nick Shearman. I attended at a theatre in town to see him act in a stage adaptation of the Dracula story. He was also a keen rock climber, and thus when he admitted an interest in meeting Dras I took Nick to meet him at The Towers. Shearman was an enthusiast for the plays of Samuel Beckett, and once met up they gelled and discussed Yeats, Beckett, Joyce and mountain themed writing till the wee small hours. Shearman remained impressed, and I valued his opinion for he was an outstanding personality himself, who went on to enjoy a major career in television production as an independent and at the BBC. This meeting led on to me organising in Manchester a Mountain Literature Evening, at which Dras was one of the speakers, others being Ivan Waller telling about an amazing escape from a crashed plane in the war and Tony Barley who survived an epic rescue after a huge fall in a remote area of South Africa; the theme of the Evening being ‘Risk and Adventure’. 

Dras was a serious thinker, and he loved to draft, rewrite either a talk or article to firm up his ideas which is why he did not publish easily, but the articles he did finalise such as ‘The Art of Cheating’ originally published in Mountain Magazine are worth re-reading, again and again. 

Bradford Lads at that thar ODG.

In 1997 Dras published an autobiography, ‘The Ordinary Route’, which besides describing a life full of climbing in many different locations Yosemite, Greece, The Sinai besides the UK and Ireland he revealed his thinking about access and conservation in mountain environments. I had forgotten just what a good read this book really is, having re-read it before commencing this article, and the chapter on access campaigns underlines his lifelong belief in anarchism; which confirms the need to support local action, away from centralised decision making.

Dras was a lifer when considering his climbing activities, and in the year 2000, he and his brother Neville celebrated 50 years of new routing; ‘Cravat VS 4C’ on Bowfell’s Neckband crag in 1950 and ‘Two against nature S 4a’ on Craig Ddu, Moel Siabod in 2000. He was a consistent explorer of crags in North Wales, and continued to be active in the Arenig’s for many years, accompanied by John Appleby and other friends besides occasionally his brother.

Neville Drasdo has now retired from a stand out career in optical neuro physiology, as a Professor in the school of optometry and vision sciences at Cardiff University, producing 80 research items and receiving over 2000 citations. As a climber, many of his early years were confined due to working on a Saturday in Bradford. Climbing on his one day off he nevertheless managed to pioneer some highly technical routes on local outcrops of which Bald Pate Direct E2 5c at Ilkley and Alibi HVS 5b at Widdop are illustrations of his abilities. Physically he was a doppelganger of Dras and when I was 15 and Neville 19, in 1951 we met up in Glencoe, staying in Cameron’s Barn high in the Pass on the edge of the Inverness Road. We ascended several classic routes on the Buachaille Etive Mor; the Whortlebury Wall, Agag’s Groove, Red Slab and The Crowberry Ridge Direct.

HD on the first ascent of 'Jac Codi Baw' on Arenig Fawr

We even tried the then hardest route in Glencoe, Gallows Route; Neville almost succeeded on this but sticking in the final groove, unable to exit from it, his retreat back down the groove and across the traverse he had made to reach this was heart stopping! This climb had been unrepeated since its first ascent by John Cunningham in 1947, and for us teenagers to nonchalantly be attempting this makes me wonder at our initiative even now.

Neville went on to make some impressive first ascents on Skye and in the North West Highlands of which his 1000 ft route on the Sgurr an Fhidhleir in Coigach was a major development in that area. And in North Wales his most impressive new climb was in accompanying Joe Brown on the 1^st ascent of ‘Hardd’ E2 5c on Carreg Hyll Drem.

Dras died in 2015 and though Neville is now suffering from a serious medical condition my most recent message from him was that he was still ‘Hanging On’.

And now as I finish with this, I see in my mind’s eye two figures standing together in the winter of 1951/2. We are in Borrowdale early in the morning and snow is lying deep on the ground and set like iron. This vision is one of the Drasdo brothers, wearing boots shod with Tricouni nails, and they are just leaving to climb in the Newland’s Valley. The rest of us Bradford Lads are heading for Great End, long ice axes at the ready, to do battle with its famous gully climbs. But that was not for Dras, he was ahead of the game and he had realised that the future lay in climbing rock routes in winter conditions. They did just that, climbing a severe summer route, made all the more demanding layered by snow and ice.

Harold under Pavey Ark

Harold and Neville Drasdo were two of the most outstanding, creative climbers of my generation. 

From humble beginnings they carved out for themselves lives and careers of great worth and their achievements and character will keep their memories alive for all who knew them. Which in Dras's case are the hundreds of school children who were introduced to the rivers, hills and moorlands of an outdoor adventure playground, which is a truly suitable memorial. 

Dennis Gray 2018.

Special thanks to Maureen Drasdo and Gordon Mansell for supplying many of these never seen before images. 

 

The Wall of Mists

The hand Traverse.Original Image from Bill Birkett's 'Classic Rock Climbs in Great Britain'
MOST mountaineering literature had not until recently attracted me greatly. Not only were the but also the experiences recorded, unfamiliar to me. With anticipation then, I came across the description of a climb I had actually done, only to find this little more familiar than the others I had read about : each pitch was imbued with an unexpected tension or an unwarranted ecstasy. It seemed to indicate that I lacked sensitivity or the power of observation unless I too could recapture some personal experiences which possibly had become diluted in perspiration or, soon after, drowned in the evening's beer. Mur-y-Niwl : "The Wall of Mist". Here surely was stuff for romance. I was not aware of it however as we plodded for two hours over the moors from the road, up through the featureless cwm into the low cloud over the col; then down, losing a thousand hard won feet in a few minutes, and finally scrambling up the steep broken rubble into the gully to the base of the climb. 

The black cliff seen at intervals through the mist swirling down the gully overhung slightly, austere and daunting. I was sure that I should remember this vividly. As I have often done in the mountains when it has been grim, I let my thoughts skip the period of the climb and rest in the future that offered a more comforting picture. I did not want to do the climb, but if I shirked it, that future would contain a dissatisfaction. There was no easy way out. It was doubtless very good for my character, making me tough and better able to face adversity with fortitude!

I was jerked out of my reverie by Richard calmly surveying the cliff for the line of weakness and suggesting that I might prefer the direct start. I did not prefer the direct start, and the cliff did not look as if it had a line of weakness. Richard's presence, though, did something to alleviate the unpleasantness. I thought of some fatuous ditty about "The Nearness of You", but I failed to burst into song. Richard was good—talented, experienced, never ruffled. The whole problem seemed different to him. There was no psychological conflict but just a sequence of moves and pitches approached with coolness and calculation—the outcome of a classical education perhaps. "How long will it take ?" I asked.

"Three hours, I should think," he replied. The prospect was about as attractive as swimming the Thames on a bleak wintry day: but I cheered myself with the hope that it might feel warmer once we were climbing. We stood up. It is always uncomfortable standing up again after a short rest. The sweat is just beginning to cool. The wind down the gully caught me. I shivered, enervated, and braced myself for the wait while Richard tried the first pitch. "Do you want to lead?" he said. "You're on form." I felt numb. I did not want a decision like this. It would have been an achievement to have led this though. Of course, what I wanted was praise; and fame if possible. 

Ambition is the most powerful stimulus. . . . "All right, I'll have a try," I said, before I had time to consider it further. It was a relief to move. I urged on myself the necessity for speed, with memories of spending half an hour getting off the ground on Longland's and shivering with nervousness all the way up. But I knew my capabilities now—or so I hoped. "Came off on Mur-y-Niwl" wouldn't sound too bad an epitaph—but it was easier to say than to face in reality. The first pitch was not as difficult as it looked, but it did not fill me with great confidence—it was probably just luck finding the right holds first time. The crux would not be like that. I took some time on the first belay. I could not afford to take any risks. I was not used to this responsibility. "I hope he's quick," I thought. "I won't be able to stand waiting around or I'll get cold and there'll be time to feel frightened." 

The second pitch: "a tricky reverse mantleshelf onto a small but adequate foothold." I moved off quickly again. I had to rely on the instructions: there was no point in querying them. I wondered how the leader of the first ascent had felt as he knelt down on this thin ledge and leaned out slightly to find the foothold, only to look straight down to the scree already far below. What magnificent exposure! "I'll be able to talk about that later," I thought. I lowered myself surprisingly easily onto the foothold, moved right and pulled quickly and strenuously onto a pedestal. That had been all right, and a word of congratulation from Richard spurred me on; but that was only two pitches. I moved from the small stance and looked along at the cliff. The rock jutted out and it seemed as though the whole mass of the cliff might fall into the gully as it inevitably would some day. I wondered when the last big chunk had come away.

Again there was nothing desperate—just the tremendous exposure which did not worry me, despite the greater height. I persuaded myself that I might be enjoying it. I was taking time to look about and make comments—I was coming to life. This V.S. stuff wasn't all that bad . . . . or perhaps it was just overgraded for a tall person. But the crux was yet to come. I waited again while Richard read the small piece of paper on which we were relying. This was it: a delicate move out and then a short hand traverse. I had been waiting for this all the way. (l  did not think I would fail, but the tension had not disappeared yet. I was probably at my best, having reached the compromise between caution due to fear and the over-confidence that comes with doing well. Again I had to lean out to see where the route went. I was able to afford the luxury of withdrawal—I seemed momentarily to have lost my tension. I nonchalantly checked the belay and moved out again. I must not withdraw this time. 

There it was—a "jug-handle" of a ledge and nothing for the feet. This was the ideal—hanging with the fingers over a three hundred foot drop. I swung round and down—a clumsy position soon rectified as my left foot gripped the rock and my right foot stretched to a small niche. I pulled up, still a little feverishly as I remembered I was leading, and I was standing up, surprised to find myself breathing heavily. Relieved of the strain, I could enjoy the last three pitches. It was worth having shivered with cold and apprehension and I was sorry the climb was not continuing. 

It seemed surprising that the sun was not shining to celebrate my elation, as we added Pinnacle Wall for good measure. We trudged off over the tops, then down to lower levels, away from the grandeur and tension—the scene of this emotional catharsis. 

 Climbing Mur y Niwl: Youtube

 MW Hewlett: Peterhouse 

First published in Cambridge Mountaineering: 1960