Undiscovered Wales

Dduallt: Looking out towards the Arans

It was late one night, as I was re-checking the galley proofs of the seventy-eight chapters making up Classic Walks, when the phone rang. Jim Perrin was on the line. "Get out the Dolgellau O.S. map and look at the huge tract of mountain country between the Arenigs and the Mawddach Estuary. A walk linking the Migneint in the north with Cader Idris in the south, including Arenig Fawr, Moel Llyfnant and Rhobell Fawr would have a quintessentially Welsh flavour with all the beauties, problems and archetypal character of that country." Any recommendation from Jim is good enough for me and I hastily agreed to the last minute addition. Ken Wilson used all his persuasive powers to get Jim to extend his walk to a marathon crossing of the hills from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Dolgellau over Manod Mawr, the Migneint, the Arenigs, Moel Llyfnant, Dduallt and Rhobell Fawr. But Jim was spared — merit, not severity was our guideline, I reasoned, and anyway, the Migneint and Arenig Fach had already been admirably dealt with by Harold Drasdo. 

Jim's manuscript duly arrived and I read it with more than usual interest for I was not well acquainted with the area. My interest quickened even more when I read that Jim rated Rhobell Fawr his favourite Welsh mountain. This made it an exceptional hill for, as readers know, Jim is a most discerning and sensitive commentator on the topography of North Wales and he knows every cwm, llyn and dol in the Principality. Rhobell Fawr leapfrogged to the very top of my list of hills to be climbed and the first opportunity arose one day in early June. North Wales was suffering a heat wave and I planned my day very carefully. No thirty mile marathon of sweat and aching limbs; a mere fifteen mile hill crossing from Llanuwchllyn to Dolgellau would give me Dduallt and Rhobell Fawr followed by a gentle descent to the Mawddach. The morning was deliciously cool as, at 5.45 a.m., I left Dolhendre on the Llanuwchllyn to Trawsfynydd road and made for the hills. Whilst crossing the Afon Lliw a heron flapped loosely overhead. A good farm track leads south of the rocky bluff, Castell Carndochan, and then an indistinct path winds up through the pastures, between twisted rowans and tumbled-down walls, now overgrown and thick with moss. 

The fields were bright with harebells and heath bedstraw and my feet left a track through the dew. After half an hour the path petered out and the hillside was rough with tussocky grass, bilberry and deep heather. I paused for a moment under a line of rock outcrops falling away on the south side of Craig y Llestri and looked about. Rolling mists clung to the valleys below and completely covered Bala Lake but, rising well above the mist and already bathed in sunshine, ran the long line of the Arans. The view north was dominated by the shapely profiles of Craig y Bychan and Moel Llyfnant, while to the west Dduallt, my first objective, rose abruptly from the flat moorland belying its 2,153 feet. From the east Dduallt appears as a long whaleback, ribboned by buttresses of grey rock, and I altered course to make for the north ridge, the natural route of ascent. The high, open plateau under Dduallt has recently been fenced and drained and I suspect the conifers, at present just visible topping the ridge to the south, will soon be marching on towards Dduallt itself. From a distance the drained area appeared white with what I suspected to be lime but turned out to be cotton grass. 

Rhobell y Big Summit

My eye caught a glint in the heather and I picked up a tiny metal ring bearing a code number. It was the identity ring of a homing pigeon and a local fancier traced the owner to Ballymena, Co. Antrim. The pigeon had been released from Haverfordwest in 1980 and had almost certainly fallen prey to a peregrine falcon. From the increasing number of birds lost, pigeon fanciers reckon that the peregrine population in Wales is multiplying. The north ridge of Dduallt is quite broad, but always interesting with rock outcrops to be negotiated and ever widening views west to the Rhinogs and south to Rhobell Fawr. Ragged grey clouds hung over the Rhinogs but it was only 8.00 a.m and the sun's warmth had hardly taken effect. The way ahead to Rhobell Fawr was blocked by a huge forestry plantation filling the valley on the west side. The 1974 Landranger map showed a gap in the trees on the south side but this too had now been planted. However, from my bird's-eye view I could see an obvious broad fire-break leading in the general direction of Rhobell Fawr and I made for this. The forest was not as impenetrable as it looked from above because rocky ground prevents close packing of trees, unlike some of the dense Northumbrian forests, I was intrigued to see the smaller fire-breaks had recently been planted with cupressus. 

The Forestry Commission now realises that most fire-breaks are useless and they are filling them in with fast growing crops like cupressus. It was a relief to emerge from the trees high up on the north shoulder of Rhobell Fawr, where Welsh sheep were grazing the close cropped grass between the rock outcrops. The ewes and their lambs ignored me and I thought what clean and peaceful creatures these Welsh sheep are, an altogether superior breed to the nervous and scraggy Swaledales and Scottish Blackfaces of the north. Jim Perrin talks of a tame fox on Dduallt. I did not see it but I was rewarded by the sight of a young fox, with a white tip to his tail, watching me until, when I was within ten metres, he turned and slipped away into the rocks. Rhobell Fawr is virtually unknown and not a vestige of a path scars its upper slopes. The O.S. pillar at 2,408 feet is tastefully constructed of natural stone and in no way intrudes on the landscape. I sat down for a second breakfast by the pillar at 9.45 a.m. and although the sun had not quite dried the dew on the grass it was quickly evaporating the clouds on the Rhinogs and Cader Idris. 

The three sheets of water visible to me, namely Lake Bala, Lake Trawsfynydd and the MawdachEstuary were beginning to sparkle. Set in an unfashionable tract of mountain country and hardly worth climbing for their modest heights alone, Dduallt and Rhobell Fawr are ringed by the popular ranges, Snowdonia and the Moelwyns to the north, Cader Idris to the south, the Rhinogs to the west and the Arans to the east. But the vast Coed y Brenin forest dominating the view west put a damper on my enjoyment and, sadly, blocks of forest were the predominating feature all round. Our mountain tops are becoming oases in a desert of forestry which goes to feed the chip board factories and pulp mills. My heart sinks when I realise that the development of new and hardier species of conifer will enable trees to be planted to a greater height. Perhaps soon even our mountain tops will be enveloped, and North Wales will become a boring switchback of green carpet like much of Scandinavia. However, the south west ridge of Rhobell Fawr is still clear of trees and provides a gentle descent. I followed a magnificently constructed dry-stone wall until, at Bwlch Goriwared, I met a good track coming over from the west. The end of a walk is important when assessing its overall quality. A long bash over miles of metalled road leaves you with bruised feet and a short temper. 

Not so today, for the descent from Rhobell Fawr continued in an idyllic manner as the path led through lush pastures, the air heady with the scent of gorse, may and foxgloves. Hazel and alder grew in the hedges and a pair of buzzards soared overhead. With the sun now high in the sky the sheep were panting, even in the shade of the walls, and the hills were shimmering. My usual haunts are the fells of the north of England and the Scottish Highlands and I delighted in the typically Welsh scenery. With small fields, woods, rock buttresses, lichen encrusted boulders, tiny whitewashed cottages with slate roofs, a proliferation of bracken and ferns and butterflies, where else could I be but Wales? We become so used to expressing outrage at erosion and litter and man's despoliation of the countryside that it is rare to have to cope with other emotions stimulated by perfection. This was such an occasion and it left me feeling quite dizzy. A short cut along a marked Public Footpath (Llwybr Cyhoeddus) took me past the farm of Cae and then I emerged above the tiny village of Llanfachreth with its steepled church and line of terraced cottages. I stopped at the tiny shop to buy a can of coke. The local inhabitants were conversing in Welsh but broke off at my arrival and greeted me in English. 

I felt totally foolish and inadequate trying to explain, with my appalling pronounciation of Welsh place names, the route I had taken and the hills I had climbed. I felt guilty, too, that I was intruding into their beautiful valley which was so far removed in distance and character from my North Yorkshire. It was Monday morning and the Dolgellau bus did not run that day but I was recommended to take a scenic route to the town along the aptly named Precipice Walk. 

This circular walk hugs the steep slopes of Foel Cynwch and returns along the shore of Lyn Cynwch. I took the lakeside section of the walk enjoying the shade provided by overhanging sycamores and oaks. The blue rippling waters of Lyn Cynwch set against the backcloth of Cader Idris maintained my mood of elevation until, at 1.00 p.m., I crossed the bridge over the Afon Wnion and entered the fine old town of Dolgellau. Dolgellau, county town of Merioneth and centre of the great Gold Rush in 1862, but today choked with coaches and day trippers and the streets littered with ice-cream wrappers. I was back to reality. ■ 

Richard Gilbert 1983: First published in Climber -June 1983 

Richard Gilbert TGO obituary

Mastermind: Mental Training for Climbers...Review

5.10 Teamsters pose in front of Gullich and Albert poster
 

‘Man knows more than he understands’ Alfred Adler.

This is the third book published by the Cafe Craft organisation covering training systems for climbing. Who are Cafe Craft in this instance? An organisation based in Germany, with ultra-modern climbing centres in Nuremburg and Stuttgart, at the cutting edge of where training for Sports Climbing and Bouldering is developing. Looming over their story are the progenitors of the Redpoint, Norbert Sander and Kurt Albert and the deceased figure of Wolfgang Gullich who despite being dead since 1992, he was the tragic victim of a car crash, was one of the first of the ‘modern’ elite to bring scientific training methods into his development as a climber. A sports physiology student at Erlangen University, studying under the famous Professor Dr Weineck, he applied his knowledge gained into his climbing and set new standards for Sports Climbing with routes like Action Directe 9A in the Frankenjura and Punks in the Gym 8B+ in Arapalies, Australia. To also note some outstanding rock climbs in the Himalaya; e.g. The Riders in the Storm.

Jerry Moffatt came into the spotlight of British climbing in the early 1980’s and for the next two decades he roamed far and wide, pioneering high standard new routes and boulder problems, participating in competitions and making early repeats in countries as diverse as Britain, France, Germany, USA, Japan and Australia.

Learning, from these experiences and agreeing with Gullich that ‘The mind is the most important muscle’ he has set down in ‘Mastermind’ what he believes are the most important elements in mental training for climbers; guided by two climbers with a Professional background in such, Professor Lew Hardy from Bangor University and Dr Noel Craine an epidemiology researcher in the NHS. This knowledge is formulated in short chapters covering such subjects as visualisation, motivation, goal setting and planning, rehearsal, plus conscious and unconscious thought etc. The books layout and setting is truly modern and is typical of the author, a ’with it’ mind set bolstered by wise sayings and epigrams, everyone from Muhammad Ali, Lao Tzu to Bruce Lee. Unfortunately there are a number of literals and grammatical errors in the text, but they do not affect one’s understanding of any meaning of the contents.

Wolgang Gullich Image and his Professor Dr Weinick,

And so for the mass of climbers who do not aim to be part of an elite performers programme, who only climb for their own enjoyment and ‘fun’ they may ask the question, ‘Why should I bother?’. Well, exploration of the mind is not time wasted, and may be helpful in facing up to life’s inevitable problems in the other spheres of our existence. Present day research into this still rests heavily on the work of three men at the end of the 19^th and early part of the 20^th centuries Freud, Jung and Adler. Each developed their own take on this subject, but the fact of all humans possessing a conscious and unconscious mind is paramount to the understanding of our behaviour. Inevitably as Psychology has developed and new discoveries have been made there has grown a plethora of specialisation; Educational Psychology, Social Psychology, Child Psychology, Clinical Psychology etc but the one of most interest to where climbing is now at, is Sports Psychology.

The core disciplines of performance are bio-mechanics, kinesiology, physiology and psychology and within climbing’s disciplines of Sport, Boulder and Competition climbers are coming to appreciate the importance of the latter, and I guess they are the ones that Moffatt’s book is now aimed at. This is bolstered by a quote elsewhere by Shauna Coxey, who has already twice been the World Bouldering Champion and is the only British climber so far, to have qualified for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo: ‘I long ago came to realise in this sport, psychology is way more important than physiology!’

To return to ‘Mastermind’ we learn the thoughts and how they set about to reach their goals from several of today’s leading Boulder, Sport and Competition climbers, Margo Hayes, Adam Ondra, Alex Megos, Chris Sharma etc and from Jerry himself. Winning in 1989 at the Leeds first World Cup Competition was a major achievement in his life, and this is also of some pride to myself, for I was heavily involved in organising this along with DMM and it took place in that City for that is where I live.

Alex Meglos

Friends of mine owned the venue and I persuaded them to let us use their main hall. But Mastermind is not just about those involved in what many see as the modern disciplines in climbing, for included with their ideas and thoughts about mind control are Leo Holding, Sandy Allen, Pete Whittacker, Stefan Glowacz, Jimmy Webb, Alex Honnold and many more covering everything from an epic ascent in the Himalaya, Base and Wing Suit Flying, Bouldering, and a 24 hour ascent of El Capitan and much more. One interview that really gripped was the one with Mich Kemeter using a breathing technique and slack line walking between two balloons set at 1000 metres up in the Sky. Many of these events are included as ‘Inspirational’ stories at the rear of the book.

However talking about the use of a breathing technique to keep the level of anxiety or fear at managing levels in order to undertake a dangerous challenge like ‘Slack Line Walking’ I have to observe that this is nothing new. It is obvious that Jerry is impressed with Chinese martial artists as I. They are masters at such techniques and are common practice in some of their meditation techniques. I have visited the Shaolin Si in Henan Province, China on two occasions previously: the Monks there have developed Gong (Kung) Fu techniques for over a thousand years. Unfortunately they have become a part of the entertainment industry (and maybe that is where Competition Climbing will also develop into given time) but they can still perform some amazing feats. I also when in Jiangyou in Sichuan Province, China witnessed a Daoist monk perform a staggering feat, a one finger hand stand.

On another occasion in Northern Sichuan I observed a monk tightrope walking between two high rock pinnacles. He had no safety line and if he had fallen it would have been terminal. But finally in reporting the observing of Chinese mind training activities, adherents following Tai Chi exercises can be observed anywhere in Parks throughout China, but the one activity I have seriously studied was at a Qi Gong centre on the isle of Hainan off the south coast of the mainland, and it was most rewarding. In this one follows a strict regime of exercises, calligraphy, meditation etc. And learning how to harness the power of one’s centre using Qi is both relaxing and impressive. It is why a Qi Gong master who came to the UK sat down and challenged a group of Royal Marines to lift him. They could not, and interesting for Jerry’s benefit might be the information that Bruce Lee of ‘Enter the Dragon fame’ was taught by such a master sensai.

So humans for generations have known about the potential of harnessing the power of the mind, and though slow to accept Sports Psychology in Britain it was adopted much earlier in the USA. Coleman Griffith of the University of Illinois is credited as one of the founders of this discipline. In 1918 he began to use cognitive and behavioural strategies to improve the performance of basketball and USA football team members and in 1925 he opened the first research laboratory in ‘Psychology and its relation to athletic performance’. I was invited in the mid 1980’s to join the Board of the British Association of Sports Psychologists, and at that date we still lagged far behind Germany, who like the USA had adopted the discipline as early as 1925 led by Dr Carl Diem in Berlin, and we had hardly noted the fact that 450 Sports Psychologists from many countries of the world had gathered in Rome in 1965 for the disciplines first World Congress.

An amusing anecdote is that one of my fellow Board members was invited by the Manager of one of the First Division Soccer Clubs in 1986 to advise his players and to begin adopting psychometric methods in their training, he came back chastened for the team had ganged up on him and refused to take part in any mind training. They totally misunderstood what he was about and felt it was a dark suggestion that some of them were mentally unstable. Remember that the First Division became the Premier League just a few years later, so this was an indication of how far behind they were in adopting what are now the accepted norms in such training. Sports Psychology came of age at the Olympics in 1984, and for the summer Olympics of 1996 the USA Athletics team had a group of 20 such accompanying their participants. It is now the norm for Sports Psychologists to be a part also of our national teams, and even the Premier Division football clubs.

I am sure like me Jerry Moffatt sees climbing as a different kind of sport than athletics, although it is a sport in which I have also been involved. He started climbing as a 15 year old, and was prepared to really ‘rough it’ just to get out onto the crags. I started as an 11 year old and used to walk long distances to do the same at a time when our country was still recovering from the war. I would have suggested to him when he was putting together ‘Mastermind’ to give an indication of where he thought climbing was travelling along to? It is still a broad church, with boulder, trad , sports, competition, alpine and greater ranges mountaineering all a part of climbing. But will it remain so with Olympic recognition?, and what experience I have is that though several times in ‘Mastermind’ we learn that training and competing is all about having ‘Fun’, it does seem awful serious now with little or no hint that anarchy might still break out given half a chance to do so. So as I have observed before, ‘Quo Vadis Climbing?’ 

Kurt Albert

Finally the book is illustrated by many fine photographs, and is intended to be used as a training manual. At the end of some of the sub-sections there are blank, lined pages to write thoughts and detail as in a diary, of where the climber is at in their training methods ,and progression for example ‘In Strength’. And into the Case binding is bound a page marker and a pencil holder. I am informed that ‘Mastermind’ has sold 12,000 copies outside of the UK so it will be interesting to note how it is received here, doubtless it will be like its author another milestone in our own climbing story.

Mastermind’. Mental Training For Climbers. Jerry Moffatt

288pages Case Bound. Published by Cafe Craft GmbH. £25.00

Available in the UK via Vertebrate Publishing. 

Dennis Gray: 2019 

 

Grandad Calling

I wake up to a video on Youtube of an old pal talking about climbing the crux of one of my routes in North Wales. It amazes me that anyone can talk their way up a route, move by move in retrospect, logged in fact for almost forty years. I try to mime-climb to the spoken moves like an ineloquent Marcel Marceau, comically out of tune to the speaker. Rewind, play. Rewind, play. But I am lost. I am lost in this time because this is not fundamentally the route of my experience. This is not because my memory has ‘passed away’, although his might have, but because it failed to see the significance in the first place, at source. I would always find it hard to remember where a route went even just after the event of climbing it. It gets me thinking as to why that was? That my conscious mind never logged such information presents an interesting morning ponder.

I have just had my leisurely breakfast at Lous Manes and picked 17 figs after the early morning raid by the male blackcap. The morning dew has bathed each darkening morsel and the white sticky sap from the stem tacks up my fingers like dabs of wood glue that sticks to the coffee mug.

 

I like the blackcap; he cannot contain his excitement among the tasty, juicy figs and he ‘clicks’ constantly, thereby giving away his game and his whereabouts. I allow a modicum of dainty pecks from this fairly tame bird but keep the greedy jays out of their feeding frenzy… as much as I can, because, as crows, they have ‘the knowledge’ that I am not a morning person. The early bird may get the ‘fig’ but I defend my late starts by knowing the early ‘fig’ gets eaten. Anyway, my blackcapped friend’s clicks inform me of a ripening taking place in the morning sun, and is rejoicing. Time to get up.

I cannot know what the blackcap sees or hears upon my morning approach of “get off me figs you bastard”, but I presume it has little to do with how I perceive myself to be. I cannot say that just because the bird is among the figs that I eat, I am contingent in what I see. Where am I?

 

And as my old friend’s memory chalks the holds like a ghost in the ether, I am nestled in something that I feel innately as ‘other’ and prior to what I hear. There is remembering here in a way that I cannot associate with. Where was I?

 

Fundamentally I know that the landscape of the blackcap and my friend’s narrative amount to a morning encounter, a connection, and I say ‘prior to what I hear’ because I feel there is a deeper, greater, older resonance to seeing and feeling. As I pause and look around the vast woodland that surrounds me I am often consumed by a blind potential…an infinite relationship to the animal…kinship…a simulacrum of a darker, dirtier arena and meaning. But this fullness is a momentary flash and then vanishes, and I fall back to an empty rationale, an invasion almost, increasingly more like a show than real life.

It is not nearly enough to appreciate in wonder the visual nature that surrounds us as if ticking an i-spy book of ingredients.
 

I think this a tangible premise and part clue to a previous life juggling moves on rock and memory loss. Another fully-loaded coffee offers no comfort. It is obvious that I cannot remember the moves because it was the moment that was moving me. This is a language greater than me, and as I have said many times there is greater significance to the experience than just a route. Climbing is nothing but a format for another encounter that collides dramatically with the force-fed, force-dripped, craft-manual ‘approach’, ecclesiastical in doctrine, colour-coded, institutionalized and authority-ridden; a pack-led approach that has become omnipresent in the world of sport climbing. But I am being far too polite.

Climbing walls are packed with believers singing hymns to a materially-sunk Demiurge whose teachings wrack the body with obediently followed codes of practice. A breeding ground for future robots and a training camp for the death of spirit as I know it, the world surely suffers in response.

John Redhead on his 'Demons of Bosch'

When tumbling joyfully through this loud, physical playground, there can be no ‘otherness’, the fulfilling essence for us to experience. That playground destroys, anulls thousands of years of potential… so who gives a flying fuck when we are strangers in a strange land? Nature is the urgent piss you have to stop climbing for. When we try to remember who we are and protect that which grows around us, climbing walls are a disease of the mind, denoting suffering and death. Adults should know better than to encourage children in a pursuit worth little more than colouring in with primary felt-tip pens, or chasing sweets.

‘When I take my kids to the wall, we take a few lego men and I put them on holds about ten feet off the deck. They have to climb up and save them. This way they are climbing, and learning how to move, without realising it. Quite a good method for getting kids climbing for fun and not just for the sake of climbing, which may seem quite pointless to some.’

 

“That’s my little Mimi up there. She’s only eight. She’s on a 6a. That’s the red one with the awkward sidies. So much faster than her friends. She refused to warm up and that’s my girl. I’m so proud.”

 

‘But enthusiasm is often fostered when there are games and prizes involved. Kids can pretend there are dinosaur fossils at the top of the wall or parents can hide treats in some of the holds. One of the reasons George was so excited about his project was simply because the holds looked—with the power of his imagination—like Mickey Mouse.’

Coaching kids by Ary Shreider.

To me this is abuse. It is conditioning. This is no ‘power of the imagination’ but corporate Disney getting you hooked like addicts on garbage and consumerism. This is Daily Mail climbing, dumbing down the senses to simple soundbites, so indoor climbing walls, UKC, the BMC and narcissistic coaches and sport psychologists can extract your money. Sign up or fall short of fame and ‘fitness’. These are economic considerations that need a healthy consumer base and local government support. The truth of ‘sport’ is the age-old, usual propaganda system of control, where the fears, stress and injustice of a disordered society create and encourage the appetite for a belief that we exist as beings in and of ourselves…the selfies are a creed of ghosts and you cannot see yourself, because you are kept in the dark, performing in bright lights, collecting holds and sequences you remember. No wonder we are paying lip-service to nature deficit disorder. This is toxic thinking.
 

‘Competition doping in ‘gym climbing’ comes with Olympic glory, money and prestige’. Well, Fancy that! But of course, these arguments go a lot further than the nonsense of simply climbing for your country. They are manifest in every aspect of society.

 

‘when the rock climber understands the nature of ascent he will have no need to climb rock…’ …and one for the crow.

Red Croc Rebel

I hope I have passionately articulated my response to not remembering moves on a climb? That the climb has a physical nature does not mean that the moves cannot take you to that blind potential, to another more ethereal connection. There is no manual for this apart from the words pause in nature by getting out into it.

 

I guess what I am saying is to never base your identity on this pursuit, because if you do, you do little more that ‘hire’ yourself out of yourself…pimped to the highest bidder.

 

I can have a laugh and play and work out in the gym but my challenge to others is how seriously they take it. That the psyche can fill up with this shit is worrying. Make no mistake there is a voracious, malevolent background, bankrolled, sitting in high-rise offices planning another wave to suck you into and dumb you down in.

 

Authentic Desire, Margins of the Mind, Shaft of the Dead Man, were stalked through as if behind enemy lines. One was prepared to die. I cannot remember the moves but there are paintings to prove I returned to my studio. Almost ‘indigenous’ in its primary impulse, nothing but ones own volition energized an ascent. Nobody could take an advantage, or seek to control, or make money from such nature inspired endeavors. The body and soul and psyche are so repleat and nourished there can be no opportunity for ‘foreign’ takeover, they have native immunity. This I call divine and I feel lucky to have experienced and survived it. This approach, almost like an erotic sacrament, sustained a life, is not in the least romantic, it is more pagan in its sensibility. But make no mistake, I am not in the ‘adventure’ game either. This stalking was not adventure. The adventure waits in the studio terrain.

 

On my third fully-loaded coffee I am well enmeshed. The clicking is persistent like a ticking clock. Again I call, “get off me fucking figs.” I pick another five as they seem to be ripening in front of my eyes. I think of Father Time. I am reminded of my Grandad who instilled a very spiritual respect for all that we share the planet with. But I always criticized him for trying to get me to learn the piano. ‘I don’t care’ I would retort. And to take up his passion for golf; ‘I don’t care’. And walking long distances; ‘I don’t care’. Growing tomatoes; ‘I don’t care’. Card games and crosswords; ‘I don’t care’. Everything and etc etc; ‘I don’t care’. I am my grandfather’s age when I rebelliously and petulantly refused to acknowledge his offers of advice and caring. He is here now smiling, looking at the woodland and appreciating the vegetables growing on the reclaimed terraces. Of course I care. I always did. And now I have become my ‘own’ grandfather, and still as angry as I was at six, concerning the way the world moves. Fighting on the side of ‘otherness’ came early.

 

It is very hard in this verdant, green wilderness that blesses me each morning, listening to the living earth, to imagine the extreme decay and negligence that humankind have allowed their psyche and the planet to be infected by. That the ‘dark ages’ are still upon us is obvious, that we have fallen and are failing as a species is undeniable. The Kali Yuga, in Hindu mythology may be near its end with a new consciousness, but it wrestles with what I see as the genocide of humanity with…

‘a hundred generations of dominant pathological affliction and perpetrator religion in global society’. John Lamb Lash.

We have been hammered. How can we reclaim what we have lost when we are so full - full of dubious outside influences that seem joyful and life affirming? What a privileged life. We are not fleeing slavery in Africa or paying human traffickers for a better life somewhere else. But wait! As the media pumps out the horror from the world stage, another, unknown, silent horror that writhes in everyone, slave, migrant, banker, is the ignorance, the fatal ignorance of having forgotten how to read ourselves in the planet and the cosmos which is our home.
 

We climb out of ourselves and home.

We run out of our selves and home.

We work out of ourselves and home.

We escape out of ourselves and home.

The anchor was severed long ago by serpents unknown.

Do not believe, but know, you are the craftsman of yourself…

John Redhead

Talywaenydd, N Wales. October 2019

All Images JR.

Roger Hubank's North Wall...Reviewed

140pages: Perfect Bound Paper Back £12.99; e-book version £4.99.

Roger Hubank is one of those seminal figures whose writing en-riches the climbing scene. He has published five novels so far, and North Wall which was his first such, appeared over 40 years ago. His greatest success so far as a climbing novelist was Hazard’s Way, set in the mountain fraternity at Wasdale Head in the early years of the 20th century, a volume which won both the Boardman/Tasker award and the Grand Prix prize at the Banff Mountain Festival.

I had read Hazard’s Way before I was invited to review the re-published edition of his Alpine climbing novel, ‘North Wall’ and most interestingly in this he has penned a Foreword explaining the stories genesis. And how it is actually set in the Bregaglia Mountain Range, and that the fictitious village of ‘Molino’ is actually Promontogno at the foot of the Piz Badile. I found resonance in his story as to the actual happening during the first ascent of the North East Face of that mountain, which was led by Riccardo Cassin. They were caught high on the face in a terrible storm and two of those who joined up with his party they met on the climb, whilst pioneering the route, died in similar storm conditions to those faced by the main characters in North Wall.

The author also explains in this Foreword why because his novel contains a certain autobiographical element, he was persuaded that his two main characters, Daniel and Raymond should be French and not English, lest the originals be too recognisable. Although the mountain Piz Molino does not exist, at the preface to the novel he has also included a topo and route description for ‘the direttissima on the north-east face of the Piz Molino’. Sufficiently like the real thing for some to have claimed to have ascended this climb!

The story appears to be well set in its era of Alpine exploration, now changed beyond recognition by the advances in equipment and technique. To fully appreciate this one has to know that the author began his climbing career in an era of moleskin breeches, jammed knots and long run outs. And though some of today’s super Alpinists may find the whole premise of such a climb too far-fetched, the plot is sound; two climbers, Raymond a hard case professional mountain guide and Daniel a talented amateur set forth to take up the challenge to climb the 1200metre north-east face of the Piz Molino; a fearsome route that has not been repeated since its first ascent twelve years earlier in 1954, by a team of four Italian climbers, two of whom perished on the descent in the inevitable bad weather of storm conditions.

Though in the story of the climb, four climbers are involved, for they meet up with two Czech climbers, Tomas and Jaro on the face, only Raymond and Daniel really matter to the story. I found it difficult to get into the story, which starts during the two climbers walk in to the base of the climb. Within these early Chapters we learn something of their characters; Daniel a practising Catholic but confused about his beliefs, a pious domestic orientated man, who when not climbing attends at Mass on Sundays, and who worries about his wife and child back at home, with a partner who has never understood his need to go and challenge himself in the mountains. Raymond is the wise old guide, who has seen it all, but is haunted by his previous participation in a Himalayan expedition, during which several members of their party were deceased in an avalanche, and the death of his brother whilst climbing on the Aguille du Plan.

 

Once the climbing actually starts it does become page turning, the mountains face is split by a huge diedre, and the line of the ascent is always obvious. Access to this feature becomes one of the cruxes of the ascent for it closes above the first bivouac and necessitates a daring pendule across the face to reach a parallel flake crack. This is followed until it is possible to regain the upper diedre, which once achieved it is better to press on to the summit than to attempt to retreat. Unfortunately during this Raymond is hit by stonefall, which shatters an arm and renders him unconscious. The Czechs catch up and help all they can and eventually agree to climb on and go for assistance. However once Daniel is alone with Raymond he begins to realise how serious their position really is. Retreat is not possible and the weather is closing in, their food and fuel are running out and though Raymond is now conscious he is limited by his injuries and cannot lead on up the climb.

So the scene is set for a climbing epic, for above Daniel and Raymond are several hundred of metres of difficult climbing some of it grade six, and in part with sections of high standard artificial ascent. But with no way of communicating with anyone else, and believing that the Czechs must have perished high above in the storm, after a couple of days waiting they realise they must try to ascend to be saved. Daniel must become the leader and Raymond with his one good arm must somehow manage to follow him.I will not describe the climbing further but I believe the story from thereon, written in short sentence syntax, is carried forward by some truly, great evocative writing. The perspective in this is also enhanced by moving from character to character. You get to know what Daniel is thinking and likewise Raymond.

 

North Wall is much more than a gripping survival story; it is one that examines the nature of climbing itself? Why trade earthbound comforts for the allure of the mountains, risking all to achieve something in climbing terms which might be extraordinary. But which to the average none climber could mean something akin to a madness. As an aside is it now Quo Vadis for climbing, set against such as an ascent as described in North Wall? Will new generations of participants be more enamoured of relatively safe and cosseted gymnastic performance, via artificial walls, and competition climbing and its outstanding ‘winners’ at an Olympics, than my generation were of the ascents by Bonatti, Cassin, Heckmair, Robbins and our own Joe Brown?

I have already noted the quality of Hubank’s writing in ‘North Wall’, it received many plaudits on its first publication. It achieves something extraordinary in its relationship between the climbing and the writing, highlighting the mental impact on its participants of dedicating one’s life to such an activity as North Walling! However in this it exemplifies that mentally there is no way you can ‘method’ your way out of such a predicament, you adapt as you go on. Interestingly someone who really knows about such is Mark Twight. In his collection of short stories/articles which also won at Banff; ‘The Confessions of a serial Climber. Kiss or kill’ he notes this aspect found in the pages of North Wall and quotes from these.

Roger Hubank: Image-Boardman Tasker

Expanding on such the book highlights more closely the context within which climbing takes place, the lives of parents, wives, girl, and or boy- friends. And families as well as the larger cultural, social and political worlds, for often they do not appear in the pages of mountaineering books. Finally, Vertebrate are to be congratulated on the re-publication of North Wall, for it has brought to attention once more the writings of Roger Hubank, a former Loughborough University English literature lecturer, who is heading the judges this year at the Boardman Tasker award; an outstanding commentator on our sport. 

Dennis Gray: 2019

 

Accident on the Cyfrwy Arete

The Cyfrwy face of Cader Idris. The route takes the left ridge.

Climb the Great Gully. A casual remark of Mr. Syme's revealed the fact that Mr. Warren was a rising surgeon on the staff of the London Hospital. Another casual remark disclosed the name of the small village where Warren and Syme were staying. I should at this moment be wearing an artificial leg but for this lucky series of accidents, beginning with the nailed boots which Syme was wearing and which had effected our introduction. On the following day Lindsay felt like a rest, so I set off alone and climbed the east ridge of Cyfrwy, off which I fell two days later. It is an interesting climb, not very difficult judged by modern standards, but quite amusing. The steep face looks sensational but is really quite easy. The best thing on the ridge is a miniature Mummery crack which calls for skill if one wishes to climb it without disproportionate effort. On August 28th I started for my last climb. Lindsay was not feeling fit, and he left me near the top of Cader Idris. I decided to descend the east and to climb the north ridge of Cyfrwy. I was carrying a short rope which I had brought along on the chance that Lindsay might join me. The day was perfect.

The burnished silver of the sea melted into a golden haze. Light shadows cast by scudding clouds drifted across the blue and distant hills. The sun flooded down on the rocks. I slid down the crack and reached the top of the steep face of rock above " The Table." The usual route dodges the top fifteen feet of this face, and by an easy traverse reaches a lower ledge. But on that glorious afternoon I longed to spin out the Joys of Cyfrwy, and I found a direct route from the top to the bottom of this wall, a steep but not very severe variation. It was one of those days when to be alive is " very heaven'. The feel of the warm dry rocks and the easy rhythm of the descending motion gave me an almost sensuous pleasure. One toyed with the thought of danger, so complete was the confidence inspired by the firm touch of the wrinkled rocks. In this short span Between my finger tips and the smooth edge, And these tense feet cramped to a crystal ledge, I hold the life of man.

Consciously I embrace, Arched from the mountain rock on which I stand To the firm limit of my lifted hand, The front of time and space ; For what is there in all the world for me But what I know and see ? And what remains of all I see and know If I let go ? I was glad to be alone. I revelled in the freedom from the restraints of the rope, and from the need to synchronize my movements with the movements of companions. I have never enjoyed rock-climbing more. I have never enjoyed rock-climbing since. But, at least, the hills gave me of their best, full measure and overflowing, in those last few golden moments before I fell. A few minutes later Lindsay, who was admiring the view from Cader, was startled by the thunder of a stone avalanche. He turned to a stray tourist, urging him to follow, and dashed off in the direction of Cwfrwy. And this is what had happened. I had just lowered myself off the edge of  'The Table'  There was no suggestion of danger. Suddenly the mountain seemed to sway, and a quiver ran through the rocks. I clung for one brief moment of agony to the face of the cliff. And then suddenly a vast block, which must have been about ten feet high and several feet thick, separated itself from the face, heeled over on top of me and carried me with it into space. I turned a somersault, struck the cliff some distance below, bounded off once again and, after crashing against the ridge two or three times, landed on a sloping ledge about seven feet broad.

The thunder of the rocks falling through the hundred and fifty feet below my resting-point showed how narrow had been my escape. I had fallen a distance which Lindsay estimated at a hundred feet. It was not a sliding fall, for except when I struck and rebounded I was not in contact with the ridge. The fall was long enough for me to retain a very vivid memory of the thoughts which chased each other through my brain during those few crowded seconds. I can still feel the clammy horror of the moment when the solid mountain face trembled below me, but the fall, once I was fairly off, blunted the edge of fear. My emotions were subdued, as if I had been partially anaesthetized. I remember vividly seeing the mountains upside down after my first somersault. I remember the disappointment as I realized that I had not stopped and that I was still falling. I remember making despairing movements with my hands in a futile attempt to check my downward progress. The chief impression was a queer feeling that the stable order of nature had been overturned. 

The tranquil and immobile hills had been startled into a mood of furious and malignant activity, like a dangerous dog roused from a peaceful nap by some inattentive passer-by who has trodden on him unawares. And every time I struck the cliff only to be hurled downwards once again, I felt like a small boy who is being knocked about by a persistent bully—" Will he never stop ? . . . surely he can't hit me again . . . surely he's hurt me enough.-When at last I landed, I tried to sit up, but fell back hurriedly on seeing my leg. The lower part was bent almost at right angles. It was not merely broken, it was shattered and crushed. I shouted and shouted and heard no reply. Had Lindsay returned home?

Would I have to wait for hours before help came ? Solitude had lost its charm. I no longer rejoiced in my freedom from intrusion. On the contrary, I raised my voice and called upon society to come to my assistance. I set immense store on my membership of the Human Club, and very urgently did I summon my fellow members to my assistance. And then suddenly I heard an answering cry, and my shouts died away in a sob of heartfelt relief. And while I waited for help, I looked up at the scar on the cliff where the crag had broken away, and I realized all that I was in danger of losing. Had I climbed my last mountain? During the war the cheery dogmatism of some second lieutenant home from the front was extremely consoling, for the human mind is illogical and the will to believe very potent. And so when Lindsay arrived and replied with a hearty affirmative when I asked him whether I should ever climb again, I was greatly comforted, even though Lindsay knew less of broken legs than the average subaltern of the chances of peace. 

Lindsay was preceded by an ancient man who keeps the hut on Cader. He examined my leg with a critical eye and informed me that it was broken. He then remarked that I had been very ill-advised to stray off the path on to " rough places " where even the natives did not venture. He grasped my leg, and moved it a little higher on to the ledge. This hurt. He then uncoiled my rope and secured me to a buttress which overhung my narrow perch. Then Lindsay staggered on to the ledge, gave one glance at my leg, turned a curious colour, and sat down hurriedly. He suggested breaking off a gate and carrying me down on it. The ancient manor of Cader hazarded a tentative suggestion in favour of sacks. I demurred, for a sack may be appropriate to a corpse but is not conducive to the comfort of a wounded man.

Lindsay, by a lucky accident, remembered Warren's address, and so I sent him off to find him. He left me in charge of the tourist who had followed him, and departed with the man of Cader. Lindsay's chance companion was useful while he stayed, for I was lying on a sloping ledge, and was glad of his shoulder as a pillow. Ten minutes passed, and my companion remarked that he thought he ought to be going. I protested, but could not move him. His wife, he said, would be getting anxious. I hinted that his wife's anxiety might be ignored. "Ah, but you don't know my wife," he replied, and, so saying, left me. He consented to leave his cap behind as a pillow. A month later he wrote and asked me why I had not returned it. This struck me as unreasonable, but—as he justly observed —I did not know his wife. I fell at 4 pm. About 7-30 p.m it became colder, and shivering made the pain worse. About 7.45 p.m. the old man of Cader returned with some warm tea which he had brewed for me, and for which I was more than grateful. Half an hour later the local policeman arrived with a search party and a stretcher. Luckily the ledge ran across on to easy ground, but it was not until midnight—eight hours after my fall that I reached the Angel Hotel. My leg was broken, crushed and comminuted. Twice the preparations were made for amputation. Twice my temperature fell in the nick of time. At the end of a week I was taken home, and lay on my back for four months, much consoled by a Christian Scientist who assured me that my leg was intact. But it was to the faint hope of the hills that I turned for comfort in the long nights when pain had banished sleep. 

Four months after I fell I left my bed bed and began to walk again with the help of a splint My right leg was slightly crooked and was two inches shorter than the left. An open wound on the shin did not disappear for eleven years, but in spite of these and other defects, Warren's skill had left me with a very serviceable leg. I began to ski again fifteen months after the accident. Unfortunately, I wasted two seasons trying to ski with ordinary bindings, and it was not until I secured spring bindings that I began to feel reasonably confident. My toes were very stiff, and in Huitfeldt bindings it was impossible to fall forward with any real pleasure. Two years after my fall I climbed the Dent Blanche. I ought to have chosen an easier and shorter expedition, for I was very heartily sick with pain and weariness long before I reached the top. But the moment of arrival on the summit stands out—unique in my mountain memories. Nothing mattered now that I had finally routed the fears which had haunted me for two long years. I could still climb, could still say

I have not lost the magic of long days, I live them, dream them still . Still am I master of the starry ways, And freeman of the hill. Shattered my glass ere half the sands were run,I hold the heights, I hold the heights, I won .

Arnold Lunn: 1924 

First published in ' The Mountains of Youth.'