A Cwm Silyn Adventure - Martin Heaton
By Martin Heaton
Or: Climbing with Senior Citizens Part 2 (*)
As fairly new members of the club, Zoe and I have been gratified by the welcoming and encouraging attitude of many of the more long-standing members. Whether this sense of gratitude is woefully misguided, or not, is perhaps for the reader to judge.
Having planned to stay at Ty Powdyr over the Easter weekend, I arranged to meet up with Roger Dyke for a days climbing. Maybe, in retrospect, I should have known better. The last time I contacted Roger, I somehow ended up spending a day seconding Sheena Hendrie on desperate polished limestone, in the full and scornful view of some of the club's glitterati. In fact, Sheena herself has warned against such foolhardiness (see reference above). Surely, with careful planning, there would be no problems this time?.
Our plan was to climb Outside Edge Route, on Craig Yr Ogof in Cwm Silyn. This was a classic route in a remote location, and would therefore deter the Easter crowds. We teamed up with Jesse James, owner of the local bunkhouse, and an equally venerable mountaineer. Before setting off from the hut, Lester Payne helpfully suggested avoiding the normal parking area, due to car vandalism. We therefore decided to park on the main road not far from Nantlle, necessitating a grueling five-mile trek through unstable slate quarries and across bogs.
We set off from the car, Roger and I cursing quietly as Jesse strode off into the distance. After a time, our crag appeared as a pale speck on the horizon. "Great, no queues!", I said, straining my eyes rather hopefully. Eventually the walk in culminated in a relentless grind up near-vertical scree and we reached the foot of the climb. There must have been fifteen people within a five-mile radius, and they were all either climbing on, or queuing for, Outside Edge. We consulted the guidebook for an alternative.
Sunset Rib (Diff) - A good natural line which provides a pleasant way to the summit without the risk of encountering crowds.
This sounded perfect. Eventually we found the start of the route and, as the youngest member of the team, I led off on the first pitch (a club tradition, I was told ?). Everything went well until I reached an unlikely looking prow and decided to investigate round to the left. I passed an old jammed nut (a clue) and sought a way up. The next half an hour does not bear describing in detail, except to say that the belay ledge was reached by a technique akin to swimming up rotting heather. I fixed up a reasonable belay and began to bring Jesse up. He pulled off a large hold and fell off, but soon reached the belay ledge. Then Roger followed, and paused on a grassy ledge to ask for advice. His options were swiftly reduced as his ledge began sliding down into the adjacent gully, but he managed to struggle up using what remained of the holds.
After a pause to collect our composure, Roger traversed to the right to appraise the next pitch, and declared it to be in a similar state, i.e. a chossy nightmare. I believed him, and it became clear that a retreat was required. Roger immediately took charge, having apparently been in many similar situations before. We executed a safe descent, despite belaying from one of Roger's antique slings (see Sheena's article again), and then from the strategically placed jammed nut, and retired to the llyn to bathe our heather-scratched limbs and wounded pride. After several half-hearted comments along the lines of "Let's go back and do Outside Edge now it's quiet", we prepared ourselves for the long walk back to the car.
On the drive back, we shared many a rueful smile over the vagaries of mountaineering, and resolved to come back and climb the route another day.
"No way." I thought to myself, "Never again".
Postscript: The author has since spent a relatively normal day climbing with Roger Dyke at Stanage.
(* This can be read as a companion piece to Sheena Hendrie's article "The Honorary Member's First Day on the Hill" in the February 2002 Newsletter.)
