Over the Hills and Far Away
by Rob Collister
www.v-publishing.co.uk
– Contents –
Part 1: Home Ground
Chapter 1 – GOING TO WORK (1984)
Chapter 2 – FIRE (1974)
Chapter 3 – BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (1983)
Chapter 4 – A CWM EIGIAU CIRCUIT (1982)
Part 2: Climbing with a Difference
Chapter 5 – NIGHT OUT (1971)
Chapter 6 – ROCK AND RUN (1993)
Part 3: Wintertime
Chapter 7 – POINT FIVE (1973)
Chapter 8 – SCORPION (1983)
Part 4: The Alps
Chapter 9 – EARLY DAYS (1988)
Chapter 10 – GLACIER PATROL (1974)
Chapter 11 – NORTH FACE DIRECT (1975)
Chapter 12 – GRANDS CHARMOZ IN WINTER (1976)
Chapter 13 – RASSEMBLEMENT (1977)
Chapter 14 – ALPINE GUIDE (1994)
Part 5: Further Afield
Chapter 15 – MOUNTAINEERING IN GRAHAMLAND (1972)
Chapter 16 – SKI TOUR IN ALASKA (1987)
Chapter 17 – TWO’S COMPANY IN THE TIEN SHAN (1996)
Part 6: The Himalaya
Chapter 18 – CHITRAL 1969
Chapter 19 – HIMALAYAN GRANDE COURSE (1974)
Chapter 20 – THE HIDDEN VALLEY (1974)
Chapter 21 – A SUMMER IN GILGIT (1976)
Part 7: The Quality of the Experience
Chapter 22 – ONLY A HILL (1987)
Chapter 23 – ADVENTURE VERSUS THE MOUNTAIN (1984)
Chapter 24 – BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA (1990)
Chapter 25 – SMALL EXPEDITIONS IN THE HIMALAYA (1980)
Chapter 26 – TRENCH WARFARE ON MAKALU (1993)
Part 8: Wilderness Ways
Chapter 27 – HOMEWARD BOUND (1973)
Chapter 28 – WANGANUI RIVER
Chapter 29 – WEST COAST WILDERNESS (1995)
Chapter 30 – FLOWER RIDGE
Chapter 31 – UMFOLOZI TRAIL (1996)
Acknowledgements
Photographs and Maps
– Part 1 –
Home Ground
– Chapter 1 –
GOING TO WORK (1984)
Quietly, at dawn, I leave the small stone house at the head of the cwm and pass, shrinking, through dewdrop dripping rushes which drench my trousers instantly. A reluctant jog takes me up a field where, later in the year, mountain pansies bloom briefly before the sheep find them, to the edge of the forest. A ride of rank grass runs straight as a conifer trunk up the steep spruce-smothered hillside. I grind up it in low gear, head down with effort, noticing the pointed droppings with which a fox has waymarked his route. He had our chickens last autumn. In a soggy patch at the top of the ride grows that lovely golden flower, bog asphodel. But this is April and there are no flowers in the mountains yet, save in a few favoured nooks and crannies, the purple saxifrage. Up here, the dew has sharpened to frost which scrunches crisply beneath my studded shoes until I emerge, panting, into sunlight on the crest of the ridge. The hardest part of the journey over, I pause to gaze around, glad now to be up so early, grateful to be alive. Below, the forest is draped darkly, threateningly, around the few surviving fields and their vein-like tracery of stonewalls. Further down the valley, the trees have disappeared; in their place the splintered wreckage of a felled hillside. The value of landscape, however real, is intangible and beyond the comprehension of economists, even in a national park. I raise my eyes to familiar mountain shapes, Arenig, Manod, Moelwyn, white and glistening, holding spring at arm’s length, and feel better.
The far side of the ridge is a richly glowing carpet of gold and emerald, the drab, drooping fronds of dead bracken and the workaday mossy masses of polytrichum transformed by the early morning sun. Descent is a delight, a series of flying leaps over this soft, forgiving surface down to a stony track. A village comes in sight, straggling along a valley bottom. It is the grey of slate, accepting its place in the landscape, only the occasional white-washed cottage standing out aggressively, like a stranger. Not far away, deserted quarries are disappearing beneath trees. Prominent on a knoll, stands a gaunt stone tower, relic of a troubled past. A heron lifts heavily from the riverbank and flaps gravely away.
Smoke rises straight into the cold, still air from every chimney pot, but there is not a soul to be seen as I run through the village. Soon, I am climbing a wet, narrow lane bright with celandine and violet and golden saxifrage, into another conifer forest. Among the younger trees I have often seen black grouse and heard the fishing-reel note of a grasshopper-warbler. But the trees are growing fast and today I see only the odd wren scuttling among stacked logs and chaffinches bustling about in pairs. Without regret, I surface from the forest on to open moorland where a stonechat greets me cheerfully from a spray of gorse. The snow-streaked rocks of Siabod rise on my left, ahead lie the rolling white tops of the Carneddau, dappled capriciously with sunlight. My stride lengthens, as much in response to this scene as to an easing of the angle. The grassy track passes within a feet of two hut circles, barely distinguishable now. Two heaps of stones nearby are cairns enclosing stone coffins built long ago, in warmer, drier times, when men lived up here. My mind jerks back to the present as I notice cattle across the path. The broad brow and massive shoulders of the bull stand out long before I see the ring in his nose, and I give him a wide berth. Bulls, even placid Welsh Blacks, are no respecters of rights of way.
The track twists stonily downwards through oak woodland of a type that must have covered most of Wales once, into a new valley. Only another mile to go now, at first on a surfaced road, then along the banks of a rocky little river disturbing dippers and grey wagtails and ewes with tiny wobbly-legged lambs. Finally, a forest track brings me to the edge of a lake which mirrors the perfection of the morning and I cross a footbridge, famous for its view of the Horseshoe, to my destination.
A shower and a change of clothes and I am ready for work.
– Chapter 2 –
FIRE (1974)
I lie on one elbow before a fire
Of ash and elm. The trees were downed last month
In the gales, the logs split an hour ago –
The devil to split, that elm!
Body warm one flank wood warm the other,
Content, the dog lies close beside me.
Outside, fresh gusts tear at brown-leaved oaks
Scouring a sky emptied by the moon
Baring a big night full of frost, and noise.
Over the fireplace are chrysanthemums
And various objects, the gifts of friends:
Carefully-blown, an emperor penguin’s egg;
Squatting on its haunches, enigmatic,
A hollow creature from America –
Frog, or cat, or maybe dog – pierced to play
A three-note tune before Pizarro’s day;
Stout and bearded, in the artists likeness,
A glazed philosopher; two netsukes
Carved minutely, the fissures browned with age –
Jovial traveller, child upon his back,
Shifty rogue sprawled across an oyster-shell –
Jacket fastenings for some mandarin
They survived their function to tell a tale.
Telephone rings, harsh-peremptory,
World is breaking in.
‘Hello. Bad news, I’m afraid. Hugh is dead.’
Empty sounds struggle with empty space.
He was forty-six, climbing last weekend,
Coronary thrombosis, so they said.
The dog is asleep, the fire burned low,
Cold creeps under the door.
&n
bsp; From the mantelshelf
Leers the pre-Columbian artefact.
Quick, quick, fling on logs,
Poke the embers,
Make a blaze.
Bowed beneath his burden,
Barrel-bellied Chinaman laughs out loud.
– Chapter 3 –
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (1983)
Given a choice of the better-known mountains of North Wales, I always make for the Carneddau. However busy the season, there is room enough for everyone. Here, the hills can swallow the crowds and still retain their dignity. I tend to think of them as rolling, grassy mountains which is, of course, not strictly true.
The glaciated backwalls of Cwm Dulyn, Craig yr Ysfa and Ysgolion Duon (Black Ladders) are as steep and fierce as any, while the three highest summits – Pen yr Oleu Wen, Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewelyn – are connected by a rocky ridge and boast their fair share of scree. But north of Llewelyn the ridge broadens to a plateau and, with the exception of that striking, but easily skirted, little mountain Tal y Fan, the grasslands stretch all the way to Conwy.
For some, this is boring country. But for me it is a region where the stride lengthens, the spirit lifts, and the eyes are freed to roam over Anglesey, far out to sea, and across the broad green rift of the Conwy Valley to the Denbigh moors beyond. It is not a dramatic landscape but it has a spaciousness missing from most Welsh mountains. It is a big area, twelve miles or more as the crow flies from Ogwen to Conwy, with scarcely a track in between, and eight miles from Bethesda across to Dolgarrog. Yet its spaciousness owes something, also, to the lack of surrounding mountains, for this is the northern extremity of the Cambrian Chain, and to the special magic wrought when sea and mountains meet.
In summer, the Carneddau are a fell runner’s delight, especially the firm turf of the prehistoric trackways encircling Tal y Fan. In winter, you must travel far to find a more exhilarating day on skis than the traverse of the Carneddau from north to south. At all times, they are magnificent walking, but their nature is such that they respond particularly well to an informal approach. I have precious memories of pre-dawn starts, of a moonlit crossing of the range, and of sitting entranced on top of Yr Elen as colour faded from the western sky, lights came on in Bethesda and Beaumaris, and night crept up the valley towards us.
One of my favourite ways up on to the Carneddau is from the ash and alder woods of Aber where Llewelyn the Last and his brother Dafydd once held court. Overcome by the Normans, the two princes achieved immortality on the summits. A path climbs steadily up the left flank of the valley, crossing screes and slabs to rejoin the river just above Aber Falls. The falls are a tremendous sight after heavy rain, though best seen from the valley bottom. Not far above is an elaborate cellular fold used by shepherds for sorting sheep. I used to think it a bombproof campsite till the autumn night when a gale came screaming down from the tops and hurled itself upon our tents. Ignoring the resistance offered by stonewalls, it snapped two ridge poles, tore a flysheet apart, and sent us, sodden and bedraggled, on our way at first light. Beyond the fold, a faint path follows the twist and turns of the river, over grassy flats where ponies often graze and past deep pools that speak of idyllic summer afternoons. The stream finally peters out into a boggy hillside leaving you to climb up on to Foel Fras, or to pick your way rightwards on to the ridge of Yr Arig with its miniature castles of frost-splintered rock. On a Saturday morning at the beginning of June, this is the route taken by two or three hundred sweating runners in the 1,000 metre Peaks Race, on their way from the sea shore at Aber to the summit of Snowdon (the record is three and a half hours). Usually, however, the only signs of life are pipits, sheep, and maybe a few wild ponies.
These ponies roam all over the Carneddau, as they have done since time out of mind. Nevertheless, they are all owned by local farmers and once a year the foals are rounded up to be sold as riding ponies for children. But for the rest of the year, whatever the weather, they run free. A few years ago I found one dead on the east side of the wall that crosses Foel Fras. Returning a fortnight on, the carcass was a seething mass of maggots. When I next visited the place, some months later, there was nothing left but the bones. Now, not even they are to be seen.
That wall across the summit of Foel Fras, with offshoots running eastward for miles down towards the Conwy Valley, is a reminder that there are no such walls on the Aber side of the mountain. Aber is one of the few places in Wales, or Britain for that matter where grazing rights are still held in common. The Enclosure Acts of the last century divided up the common land of many parishes between the freeholders, or landowners, at the expense of those who leased their land. Ostensibly, the Acts were intended to encourage agricultural improvements – drainage, crossbreeding, new strains of crop, and so on – and thus increase productivity, by giving private enterprise its head. In practice, more often than not, they increased the wealth of the wealthy, while depriving the poor of a place to graze their animals and collect firewood or peat. That there was not quite the mass exodus from the land that accompanied the clearances in Scotland was due to the development of slate quarries and copper and lead mines in the same period. Be that as it may, one of the few stipulations of the parliamentary commissioners was that owners should enclose their new lands. In lowland Britain, the result was thousands of miles of hawthorn hedges. In the uplands, the legacy of Enclosure was a network of beautifully built walls, still crucially important to many hill-farmers, yet all too easily broken down by thoughtless walkers.
If you walk from Snowdon over all fourteen of the Welsh 3,000 foot peaks, Foel Fras is the last to be visited. One November evening, having completed the Fourteen Threes on my own, I was careering in the dark down the steep grass slope that leads to Drum. It had been a dry but cold day, the rocks glazed by the first frost of the winter. Suddenly, without warning of any kind there was a flash of lightning and, simultaneously, a tremendous clap of thunder. To my dying day, I shall remember the shock of that moment, caught in mid-stride, transfixed. More lightning followed, illuminating the mountains like a cosmic flashgun, and for five minutes I squatted on the hillside below Drum till the storm moved away.
On Drum itself there is an imposing cairn, a massive pile of stones bigger than any summit monument built by walkers. All the way along the spine of the range there are more of these huge cairns, on Foel Grach, Llewelyn, Dafydd and on the col just before Pen yr Oleu Wen. The name Carneddau is derived from them and excavation has shown them to be Bronze Age burial sites, at least 3,000 years old. Their presence is not so extraordinary when one recalls that at that time Britain was enjoying a climate far warmer and drier than it is now. The settlement below Llyn Dulyn, which is probably of the same age, is 1,600 feet above sea level; and on both east and west sides of the mountains, the strip of land between the 800foot and 1,400-foot contours is rich in prehistoric remains – cairns, cromlechs, circles and standing stones. There are few occupied houses that high in Wales today. Trees, oak and birch especially, would have grown to a height not attained by even the hardiest of the Forestry Commission’s imported conifers. But the tops would still have been bare, and it is not difficult to imagine herdsmen ranging far and wide with their sheep and cattle, just as they do in the Himalayas. It would have been natural for these people to bury their leaders on the summits. A love for mountains may be a relatively recent phenomenon, but a reverence for them as places that are ‘between heaven and earth’ seems to have been instinct in man from the earliest times.
As you descend from Drum beside an Enclosure wall to the standing-stones of Bwlch y Ddeufaen (Pass of the Two Stones) and follow the Roman road down towards the sea, only the least imaginative can fail to feel themselves inheritors. True, the landscape has been hideously disfigured by the twentieth century’s contribution, a double column of jackbooted pylons that goose-step their way across the Carneddau at this point. But pylons cannot destroy the overwhelming sense of a human past in these mountains, a continuity of life and work that mocks any at
tempt to call it a wilderness area, but makes it no less valuable for that. Descending a sunken lane back into the woods and flowers of the Aber Valley, beneath an Iron Age hill fort, you are taking a route used, no doubt, by Neolithic shepherds, Bronze Age traders, Roman legionnaires and Welsh guerrillas. It is a past worth cherishing.
– Chapter 4 –
A CWM EIGIAU CIRCUIT (1982)
Cwm Eigiau is a favourite stamping ground of mine. I remember, one grey, mid-November day, picking my way up the steep, wooded hillside behind Dolgarrog. It was a long approach to Carnedd Llewelyn, but to walk from a tidal river is to appreciate fully the height of a mountain second only to Snowdon; and to start from the valley floor is to feel more keenly the bleakness of a plateau where freeze-thaw activity is still sorting loose stones into stripes and polygons.
Where the angle eases, beech and oak give way to bracken, thorn trees and old field systems. The slope is dotted with ruins whose occupants gave up the unequal struggle with wind, rain, and poor soil, and departed for the cities or the colonies. No one actually lives here now. ‘You cannot live in the present, at least not in Wales’, wrote R.S. Thomas. In this lonely upland, which is possibly emptier than it has been for 4,000 years, you can understand what he meant. Our century’s contribution to this landscape is less poignant – a hideous black pipeline that carries water from Llyn Cowlyd to the hydro-electric power station in Dolgarrog. I ducked under the pipe and climbed up on to the broad spur which gives a long, rough haul up Pen Llithrig y Wrach. A peregrine passed overhead, flying fast and determined towards the cliffs of Creigiau Gleision. Miles away to the south, a lake on Moel Siabod glittered in the grey landscape. Clouds were gathering in the west, the wind was stronger, up here, and cold. Rain could not be far away, but on the Great Orme, as usual, the sun was shining.
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