From the summit, I ran down the grassy slope to Bwlch Tri Marchag, the pass of the three horsemen, where three parish boundaries meet. Easy to imagine three dignitaries, back in history, leading their horses to this spot, perhaps to settle a dispute, and giving the place a name for evermore. Less easy, though, to find a source for Pen Llithrig-y-wrach, the slippery slope of the witch.
A short, steep climb leads to the top of Pen yr Helgi Du. It is a spacious summit, but a few steps northwards bring a dramatic change. Abruptly the ridge narrows to a knife-edge, revealing for the first time the dark waters of Ffynnon Llugwy on the one hand, and the ruins of the Cwm Eigiau slate quarries, derelict since 1890, far below on the other. Almost simultaneously the ridge plunges downwards, confronting one with the huge craggy profile of Craig yr Ysfa, and though it soon becomes apparent that the descent is a short one, it is steep and hands are needed in places. At the col, a zigzag path up loose scree arrives from Ffynnon Llugwy. Since the CEGB, with arrogant disregard for the purpose and meaning of a national park, built a tarmac road up to the lake in the early seventies, this path has become so popular that it has had to be repaired with ugly, gabion cages (wire boxes filled with stones).
A short scramble up a rock slab from the col leads to Craig yr Ysfa, really a shoulder of Carnedd Llewelyn rather than a top. Three of the classic rock climbs of Snowdonia emerge hereabouts – Amphitheatre Buttress, Pinnacle Wall, and Great Gully. There were three climbers on the upper arête of the former, their small figures adding scale to the surrounding rock.
A few feet short of the summit of Llewelyn I peered over the edge on my right, where scree slopes drop steeply to Ffynnon Llyffant, a rarely visited little tarn surrounded by aircraft debris. Horrifying numbers of aircraft crashed in these mountains during the last war when inexperienced aircrews lost their way in bad weather. In the hard winter of 1978 I had stood in this same spot nervously contemplating a steep snow slope, pondering on the ‘lonely impulse of delight’ that had brought me there on ski. Then I had found myself, almost without thinking, launching out into the first turn. Today, Snowdon was buried in cloud and the wind was biting. Hands thrust deep in pockets, I passed quickly over the summit to a view of Anglesey, Puffin Island, and a wide expanse of sunlit sea. Just before the grassy plateau between Llewelyn and Foel Grach, I turned aside to investigate the small rock tower that is a conspicuous feature from the east. All around it are loose stones originally piled up by men, and on its top the remains of a circular burial cairn. Legend has it that this was the resting place of the Tristan or Tristram of the Arthurian stories; but it was probably old before Arthur’s time, dating, like the other large cairns up here from the Bronze Age.
From the plateau, I turned away down the broad ridge that runs south-east to a region of eroding peat hags overlooking Dulyn and Melynllyn – deep, dark lakes overhung by wet, vegetated crags which house a rich flora safe from the depredations of sheep or people. Downstream of Dulyn, the walled enclosures of the Bronze Age settlement stood out clearly. Behind me, wraiths of cloud were swirling about Llewelyn and, suddenly, the steep, glaciated faces I had just traversed became an inky black, the pale, grassy flank of Pen Llithrig standing out like snow by contrast.
Turning, I ran the length of the ridge to the ruined farm of Tal-y-llyn, drops of rain chasing me down the wind. As the light faded, I sped along a narrow road and down the steep footpath beside the Dolgarrog gorge. Its waterfalls and pools, familiar from playful summer afternoons, glinted sombrely in the gloaming. It was dark by the time I reached the car.
– Part 2 –
Climbing with a Difference
– Chapter 5 –
NIGHT OUT (1971)
‘Night climbing, sir? No, there’s none of that now, sir. It’s all demonstrating and smashing things nowadays.’ And the elderly porter shook his head regretfully.
David hadn’t done King’s and it was his last night in Cambridge. Gloomily he remarked that he was ‘going out with a whimper’. The remedy was obvious.
David’s poncho bulging strangely, we scrunched noisily over the gravel towards the chapel, the din of three May balls reverberating about us. If only the fifteenth century sculptor knew how useful the tail of that dog would be! Might be dangerous to swing on it, though. Up the glass, just like a ladder, till half way up there’s a tug on the rope. Two voices below. A splashing sound, and one voice remarks that there will be a bare patch in the grass next year. Once before, at that same spot, I had looked through a hole in the glass to see torch-beams flashing inside. Fortunately the Dean mislaid the key to the roof. The voices move away and there is a wide step across into the corner. A stone bracket provides a thread runner. The drainpipe is square, with its sides flush to the wall. Fingertips and friction, but plenty of resting places – curious how, in the dark, you feel yourself to be falling backwards even when in balance – and at the top a gorgeous metal jug on which to swing, heave, mantelshelf, before crawling through an embrasure.
David started to climb. The throbbing beat of the Stones would drown anything, I thought. Immediately, the sharp metallic clink of a karabiner rang out like a gunshot. I glared over the edge, but could only make out a vague shape a long way below. The dew on the roof was soaking through my trousers. Too bad. Stars, hold your fires … Where are they, though? Hell, it’s getting light already. Come on, David. A head appeared suddenly and David squeezed through the hole, panting.
The pinnacles are easy enough, the spikes no more than a nuisance. Though, pulling up on one crenellation, two feet square, I found that it was coming away in my arms. Hastily, I pushed it back and grabbed something else. Summits can be places for meditation, but there was no time on this one. On the Fellows’ lawn the first blackbird was awake. David climbed up and down again, and we prepared to abseil back to the vestry roof. As I started to descend, David touched my sleeve. ‘How do you abseil?’ he whispered.
Five minutes later we were leaning over Garret Hostel Bridge watching the May ball couples punting their way to Grantchester. A policeman approached quietly and leant beside us. David hitched his poncho a little closer. ‘Morning, officer.’ ‘Lovely morning,’ was the affable reply. We strolled away. An owl floated down the lane ahead of us. Behind, the archaic rhythms were pulsating still, but in the clear cold morning light, the chapel stood austerely aloof.
– Chapter 6 –
ROCK AND RUN (1993)
I was near the top of Scafell, soaked to the skin and not warm. The showers of the previous hours had settled to a heavy, persistent rain which was cascading down the gully in little waterfalls. Although it was the end of May, my fingers were numb. My feet, in Walsh running shoes, were numb too, and skating about on the greasy rock. It was growing dark, there was perhaps half an hour to nightfall. I realised that this could not be Broad Stand, but on the other hand, I had no torch and there was not enough time to descend and find the right way. It had to be up.
By this time, I was sixty metres above the screes at a bulging constriction. The only feasible route was out of the gully – more of a chimney by now – to the right. I made a long step across to straddle the gap, trusting my feet not at all on flat slippery ledges. Then I needed a handhold to pull myself across but nothing seemed quite positive enough for frozen fingers. Yet to retreat from here would not only be difficult but would mean benightment. I lurched across with a heave and a prayer and scrambled up into a grassy haven.
There was no going back now. But I quickly realised that the difficulties were far from over. With more than a hint of panic, I tried first a greasy slab on the right, then a steep corner on the left, liking the look of neither. The likelihood of a bivouac crossed my mind, but it did not bear contemplating. I was dressed in trackster bottoms, a T-shirt and a thin sweater, under a lightweight cag that ceased to be waterproof years ago. I had been running thirteen or fourteen hours in a circuit of the Lakeland fells. I had no food left in my bumbag. I would be hypothermic in minutes, let alone hours, if I stopped moving.
Settling for the slab, I found myself poised on small holds, with little of relevance for my fingers and no faith at all in the studded soles of my shoes. One leg started to shake. I was conscious of gloomy space beneath me. I was frightened, and angry at getting myself into such a situation. Before my foot could be shaken off, I made the stretch upwards, right hand settling on a rounded hold just as my left foot shot off. The hold was not enough. Both knees scrabbled on the slab giving just enough purchase for the fingers of my left hand to claw into a tuft of grass. Heart thumping, I hauled myself up.
No time to waste. Stumbling on into the gloaming I emerged on to the upper slopes of Scafell to meet the full blast of a gale. Quickly, I visited the summit and returned a few yards to where a small path dropped down the other side of the ridge. The map I had borrowed had been trimmed at the 600-metre contour and I had to assume that downwards would lead to Wasdale. Scree soon turned to grass, and even after I had lost the path I was able to continue running through the dark. Once, I nearly tripped over a startled fox. Eventually, I hit a stony track running beside the boundary wall of some woodland. Civilisation could not be far away. Finally, the dim glow of an interior light loomed up ahead and, with relief, I joined Alan and Joy Evans in the warmth of their little car, where they had been waiting some time. Every so often, a violent gust would rock it alarmingly. The rain beat on the windows. Without regret, I called off my attempt on the Bob Graham round.
Fell running is what you make it. It can be just a branch of athletics; equally, it can be a form of mountaineering as rewarding as any other. For me, it provides a greater sense of personal freedom than either hillwalking or roped climbing, and it need not be lacking in adventure …
Walkers have always been a little scornful of runners for their cavalier treatment of the hills. You can’t see much of your surroundings, they argue. And it is true, you don’t notice much except the stones at your feet when you are grinding up to Bochlwyd or skipping from rock to rock over the Glyderau. But perception can be intensified by fatigue and views are all the more wonderful for the effort expended. Striding out over the turf of the northern Carneddau or bounding down the long ridge that leads from Moel Siabod to the Pen y Gwryd, I, for one, know a delight and an exuberance rarely felt at other times. Sights, sounds, sensations may be absorbed fleetingly, subliminally even, but they have a powerful effect and the bubbling sense of well-being that follows a mountain run goes beyond the merely physical. It is a gladness of spirit, never experienced running on a road, that grows out of the cloud song of skylarks, the casual acrobatics of a raven, the sparkle of rain drops on grass after a shower, the spongy softness of sphagnum underfoot, the rich glowing green of polytrichum moss in evening sunlight, or the sudden clap of wings as terrified pigeons hurtle past, a peregrine in hot pursuit. All those individual strands that make up the texture of a mountain day are amplified by the effort and absorption of running. Much detail in the landscape fabric is missed by passing so swiftly over it, but that which registers has an immediacy and impact unknown to the more sedate traveller. It is more akin to the experience of the climber who may notice the cluster of crystals in a pocket, the tiny fern sprouting from the back of a crevice, the flow-banding in the rock at his feet, but is rarely in a position to linger over them.
One of my favourite ways of enjoying the hills is to combine running with soloing relatively easy climbs. This introduces dramatic changes in pace and focus while demanding even greater concentration. I well remember one outing of this type. It was during a grey, cold spell in October; perfect weather for running, chilly on the fingers for climbing. Starting later than intended on the Amphitheatre Buttress of Craig yr Ysfa, I ran by way of Carnedd Llewelyn and classic climbs on Tryfan, the Idwal Slabs and Glyder Fawr down into the Llanberis Pass. By the time I reached Cyrn Las the autumn day was drawing to a close. I had run many miles and climbed 2,500 feet of rock. All went well, however, until that point near the top of Main Wall where it becomes necessary to move left round an arête on to a steep wall overhanging a deep, dark gully. It must be one of the most exposed pitches in Wales. As I stepped round my fingers reached that degree of cold when it is hard to tell whether they have a firm grip or not, when even large holds do not feel quite large or incut enough. For several minutes I was uncomfortably aware that there was not another soul in Cwm Glas, night was drawing in, there were hundreds of feet of air beneath me, and I did not relish downclimbing what I had come up. Finally, I made the moves. Adrenalin propelled me up the rest of the climb and on to Crib y Ddysgl, where gravity took over and I jogged contentedly down the Zig-Zags to Glaslyn. I was weary, but acutely conscious of my surroundings, so familiar and yet so strange: the silent, empty cwm, a yellow, rising moon reflected in the dark water of the lake, and Snowdon hulking hugely overhead. I slept well that night.
Of course, not every excursion has to be quite so strenuous, nor does it have to become an epic to be memorable. One of the attractions of both running and soloing is the amount you can do in a short space of time. It is possible, for example, to squeeze in a climb, or a mountain, or both, before breakfast ...
Early one summer’s morning, when mist was rising from the edges of the Mymbyr Lakes and the reflection of the Snowdon Horseshoe was marred only by the dimples of rising trout, I left the car at Pen-y-Pass and jogged sleepy-legged up to Lliwedd. A red sky in the west and a lurid yellow light from the rising sun were soon smothered by grey stratus, with a few sinister lenticulars hanging beneath, like zeppelins, that boded no good. No matter, I would be up and away before the weather broke.
There was no one about but a few indifferent sheep and a pair of noisy ravens. The grass was bright with specks of colour: yellow tormentil, blue milkwort, pink lousewort – strange names but much-loved, inseparably associated with summer in the hills. On the crag, bell-heather was in bloom, the bilberries not yet ripe. The rock was dry after a long spell of fine weather and warm to the touch from the early sun. The climbing, nearly a thousand feet of it, was a delicate delight, sloping holds for the feet, pinch-grips for the fingers. It would be a nightmare in the wet. I referred to the guidebook once or twice, for lines on Lliwedd are not obvious and it is easy to climb into difficulties. But most of the time I simply followed holds well worn by the nailed boots of previous generations. I felt myself the inheritor of Archer Thompson and Winthrop Young and thought of that day when Mallory dislodged a boulder near the top, setting off an avalanche that gave the route its name.
I emerged on to the summit to be startled by demonic shrieks and roars from Cwm y Llan far below. Then the penny dropped: shepherds were gathering the sheep for shearing. On Bwlch y Saethau, the Pass of the Arrows, where Arthur fought his last battle they say, a man was leaning on his crook, shouting to his dogs. I bade him good morning and received a perfunctory nod in return. I was not surprised. Welsh farmers, unlike their Lakeland counterparts, have never seen mountains as anything more than grazing land, and regard any other activity upon them with an attitude that varies from amused indifference to angry contempt. But then, both their language and their way of life are sore-pressed these days. Perhaps a defensive attitude is inevitable. I shrugged resignedly and ran on up the steep screes of the Watkin Path, not much faster than walking, probably, but good for legs and lungs I tell myself. And so to the highest point in England and Wales where, as yet, all was quiet.
Way below, the water of Llydaw and Teryn and the distant Mymbyr lakes glinted in the grey-blue mistiness, enfolded by the arms of Moel Siabod and the Glyderau. In the east, too, lakes were the only features to stand out from the enveloping haze – silver reflections up on the Moelwyns, around Manod, and farthest of all, little Llyn Conwy set in the boggy heath of the Migneint. A one-legged herring-gull cocked its head hopefully but I had nothing to give it. Over the airy crests of Crib y Ddysgl and Crib Goch I ran with care, making it a point of honour to balance along the knife edge, then, stride lengthening, down the path and back to Pen-y-Pass. I glanced at my watch
. It was exactly three hours since I had left the car. There was time for a quick cup of coffee in Capel Curig before starting work. Rain was in the air, the best of the day was over. But I did not mind. I had made the most of it and in my pocket was a keepsake, a small but perfect crystal from one of the stony ledges of Lliwedd.
– Part 3 –
Wintertime
– Chapter 7 –
POINT FIVE (1973)
I looked at my watch – it was only nine o’clock. What could have woken me so early? Then I became aware of Geoff regarding me sleepily. ‘I know what that bloke meant,’ he mumbled, ‘when he said that if you are dry you can’t possibly imagine being wet.’ That seemed an odd thing to say, but it was too much of an effort to think of a reply, so I just grunted. Only gradually did it all come back, culminating in that eternal, 20 mph, lay-by-crawling drive, and our arrival five hours before, stumbling up the streaming hillside to the bothy. Dreamily, I luxuriated in the knowledge that we really were dry and warm.
A wet cold had been the dominant sensation all day. The sploshing, boot-sucking walk up through the peat from the distillery at midday had been normal – the wet feet part, anyway. It was normal, too, that the back of my shirt should be soaked with sweat from the sack, even though the forecast had been for a low freezing level. But the stance at the foot of the first pitch beneath overhanging rock which perpetrated a myriad drips that did not quite add up to a waterfall, seemed out of place on a Scottish winter climb where, as all the best books tell you, weather of arctic ferocity can be expected. I had a waterproof jacket, but that nasty clammy feeling was soon advertising itself around my neck, working its way insidiously downwards, and my breeches drank up the moisture like thirsty cacti.
Over the Hills and Far Away Page 2