Your leader is either very cold or very tough
By Roger Dyke
The Club Meet at Brackenclose, Wasdale, 1 - 3 May 2010.
On Saturday Jim & Sandy took me on a gentle amble over Scafell via snow-filled Lord's Rake and down Slight Edge. Gentle amble for them, endurance test for me. Following Jim up the steps he kicked into Lord's Rake I was glad I'd followed instructions and brought a telescopic stick to use in place of an axe: when you looked back, it was a long way down...
Saturday, the sun was out and everyone was going climbing, but I knew it was too cold and windy still for me. Even on grit edges, I get really pissed off when the wind makes my eyes water and then blows the tears onto my glasses so that I can see approx. nothing. And my fingers go numb below 5°C. So I walked up with the climbers to the Napes with just lunch and a camera. Even without climbing gear and ropes I trailed behind the youngsters. I took the pics you've seen on the Club website, would have been cold except for Jim's last-minute advice to "Take every bit of clothing you've got", and drifted back down. At least I knew that I had made the right decision: it was much too cold for me to climb this weekend, and I would never have made it to the crag if I had been carrying climbing gear.
So on Monday I was going to be sensible and just go for a walk again.
But after supper, Dave Bish sat down by me and said "Fancy climbing tomorrow Roger?" I must have had too much of the wine Scott left behind, because without hesitation I said "Yes indeed - that would be fun".
The mountain gods must have laughed.
A late start because I had to chase down to the NT campsite to beg a lift back to Cheshire for the evening. I had a 9mm rope, and Dave had a 9 and an 11, so we would climb on a single 11. Until Dave looked in his sack and found he actually had no ropes at all, so we would climb on a single 9. (Neville, stop reading now - it gets worse...) Dave kindly took the rope and most of the gear, my sack being full of clothing and a flask of coffee, and we set off up the hill, 40 mins behind four younger members of the Meet who were also heading for Pikes Crag and indeed for the same route we had chosen - Grooved Arête. I made slow progress. Must have been frustrating for Dave, fresh from his 16km run the previous day. At one stage he left me to have a long rest while he ran off in search of water.
Eventually we reached the scree at the foot of the crag and flogged painfully up that to where we expected the others would be clear of the first pitch - but we found the four of them having a team faffing session. Someone generously offered that Dave & I should go first, but being perfect gentlemen we declined and implemented our Plan B - down the ****ing scree again, across, and up again to the start of Wall & Crack Climb, mysteriously graded VD+ and described as "a clean route on very good rock". It was too, and with comfortable stances. Plenty of gear placements as well - but never where you needed them; it proved to be distinctly bold in places.
We changed into rock shoes and cut the relevant page out of the guide book, ready for instant reference. I donned my thermal pants, fleece, padded waistcoat, and canvas jacket to look like the Michelin Man, while Dave was climbing in just vest and shirt and thin trousers to look like a fell-runner. We stuffed boots, flask and all into a "seconds" sack, so the leader could climb with a minimal sack. It was cold, with ice on the grass and the wind whipping round the arête we were about to climb. Dave set off on the first (two and a half) pitches, his fingers getting numb then losing feeling altogether. Neither of us had gloves.
While Dave was still on the first pitch a lady from Romsey complained loudly below us "Someone's on our climb!" Why did we feel guilty?
Shortly afterwards we heard desperate screams and sobbing from her.
She hadn't seen my M&S long-johns, honestly.
I followed Dave up. It really was freezing, and snowflakes were drifting around. Dave was clearly very cold; I was cold and my fingers had no feeling; the sky looked threatening, and we could easily abb from where we were. So I suggested we did just that - but no, Mr Bish pointed out we were already a quarter the way up and he wanted to finish the route. To enable him to unfreeze a little, he led off again, declining the unprotectable gentle rock staircase of the guidebook and taking a 4b crack instead, stuffing a couple of runners in to be sure I enjoyed this extra treat.
Dave is heavier than me, a single 9 is difficult to hold at the best of times, and my fingers were scarcely working. I remembered something Al had shown a group of us in Ty Powdwr years ago, for just this situation: I put a screwgate into my waistband and took the dead end of the rope back through that, so there was a Z in the rope to the belay device. Worked like a dream - tho it wasn't tested for real.
On a higher ledge the Romsey lady's guide appeared beside me, soon joined by herself, now composed. Both were very professionally clad, wearing half the stock of Field & Trek and with gloves. The guide put two solid Rockcentrics in a crack, his two 9mm ropes tight to him and equalised. I had been stood on the ledge unbelayed when he arrived, but was now attached by a wiregate to a lone Friend, our single 9 looping casually along the ground to it. I think he felt we set a poor example to his pupil. Meanwhile Dave was having a hard time on the wall just above us, not helped by the fact that his whole body was now shivering visibly. The guide said wryly, "Your leader is either very cold or very tough. Or more likely both." I was uncomfortably cold myself, despite all my padding. I was clearly not as tough as when Dave Booth & I climbed at Tremadoc right thro one winter, casually sweeping snow off holds. The age I am now, I should be sat in slippers by the fire, reading the Sunday papers and having an occasional snooze [That would never do. Ed.].
Higher, the "zigzag crack running right in 3 risers" proved increasingly entertaining, and Dave got colder still as I struggled with the top section. My brain must have been frozen; I just couldn't work out how to finish it. In the end it yielded to a solid handjam, a marginal toejam, and brute force.
The final pitch started with another crack, one that looked easy this time. It wasn't, but Dave hurtled up it anyway knowing that beyond it there was easy ground to the top. When I followed I had to recover a quick-draw that Dave had used as a thread ("I couldn't reach my tapes", he told me later). The rope went thro both krabs, and it was unbelievably difficult to get it out of either krab with just one cold hand, even with loads of slack, because the QD was scarcely long enough, the krabs were close against the rock, and I was just above it. I knew I had only to get this out, then we could be away and out of the wind?
Success at last! I almost ran up the last few metres and we went off to the top of the Pulpit, to abb down into the little col. My brain was still in cold storage and I put the safety Prussic above my belay device at first. I put it right, went down, gave Dave a Firemans to safeguard him, and we found we were in a sheltered cove where we could un-gear, boot up and? drink hot coffee!!! The snowflakes drifted down again and a happy Dave regaled me with stories of benightments in the Dolomites and climbing back up waterfalls to recover stuck abb ropes.
As we eventually set off down we could see the other teams topping out 100m away. Changing to Plan B had certainly been the right decision - we would really have frozen behind them. I was disappointed not to have led a single pitch, but most of them I couldn't have led anyway - especially in the cold wind, with a sack.
Down by a delightful, mainly grassy, gentle descent which Dave knew, into the world of normal people. We had been getting strange looks from them for some time before Dave asked me "Are you keeping that helmet on for warmth or safety?"
