ANABASIS MOUNTAINEERING CLUB anabasismountaineering.org.uk | August 2019 Newsletter.

The Rhône Glacier from the summit of Klein Furkahorn in the Urna Mountains, on the border of the cantons Valais and Uri, Swiss Central Alps.

Dear Readers,

At the most recent committee meeting, the topic of reintroducing a newsletter in digital-form was discussed: to share activities and stories of club members; highlight club meets and to deliver club news.

We are aware that there are a diversity of demographics and interests within the club, extending beyond mountaineering into other sports and pursuits, often facilitated by the club hut at Garth. Hopefully this first issue will highlight a small cross-section of these and encourage others to contribute to future newsletters.

Relevant contact details can be found below. Any comments and criticisms are welcome, and should be directed to:

Newsletter: [email protected] Communications: [email protected] Secretary: [email protected]

Summer in – Chris Alston

The Alston Clan (Chris, Leila, Yvie & Finley) visited the hut 30th July - 2nd of August. We were joined by Leila’s best friend Sophia and club member Colin Spencer and his two children Freya and Leo.

On Wed 31st July, we (the Alston’s) took a walk around before heading to Siabod Cafe to dry off and share some coffee and cake. The Spencer’s went climbing and did a bit of sightseeing before joining us at the hut for an evening of games and toasting marshmallows by the fire.

The next day, the sun had come out to play, so we all went down to the Secret Beach for a paddle before walking around Llyn Geirionydd. The kids played hide and seek for a while by the monument. We managed to find them all eventually. Colin, Freya and Leo left us at that point, and we headed back to the hut only stopping for coffee and cake (common theme for our trips to Garth).

We then made the most of the sunshine by taking a swim in the river before settling down on the patio for dinner and games. On the whole, another fantastic visit to our second home. We’re looking forward to heading back in 2 weeks’ time. The Seven Ages of Grooved Arête – Dave Atkinson

For those who may not know or who may have forgotten, Grooved Arête is a rock climb on . There are other Grooved Arête’s but here the interest is the Tryfan one. It is widely held to be a good climb, the best of the rock climbs on the rocky East Face of the mountain. But a climb is not just a physical entity, climbing it makes it an experience too, meaning that you can have a bad climb on a good one and a good climb on a bad one. Subjective judgements apart, the climb begins on Heather Terrace and finishes some 750ft higher, close to the summit of the mountain. It is graded as ‘Very Difficult’ standard (Hard Very Difficult to be precise) which paradoxically means that the majority of rock climbers would regard it as not very difficult at all.

Just as Shakespeare would have us believe of man; a climb has Seven Ages. But it is only in the first of these Ages, and perhaps in the last, that the climb has objective reality; everything else is subjective, a human invention. This is how it works, for me, and Grooved Arête.

The First Age was as first ages should be, I suppose, one of innocence and ignorance. Growing up in southern England, the mountains of our land made little impression on me until I was introduced to the North ones in school Geography lessons. The emphasis was on the glacial landforms of Cadair Idris, from which I came to understand that in the British Isles there were mountains which had names even though the one called Tryfan was yet to make itself known to me. But the rocks that were to become Grooved Arête were already there, the result of millennia of volcanic fire and tectonic mountain building given final form by ice, wind and rain.

In the Second Age I discovered Tryfan and that it was not just the mountain that had a name: there were various bits of it with identities of their own. Adam and Eve sat on the summit, there was an East Face, a North Ridge, a Heather Terrace, a Milestone Buttress, and so on. Among these identified bits were vertically ordered sections of rock which were declared to be ‘climbs’ with the naming rights thereto generally falling to the people who first completed the climb. It was a formative time, and so Tryfan’s Grooved Arête took shape in my mind as a good climb and one that was not so difficult as to put it beyond my aspiration. I wanted to do it. And so, to the Third Age of Grooved Arête, the Age when I first climbed it. My companions were Ken and Els at a time when they were both already my long-term friends but had yet to become Anabasis members. Ken was in the lead and I remember the three of us assembling above roaring depths in the wind and the rain at the place on the climb known as The Haven. I remember too, afterwards, the generosity of another, more experienced on the rocks than any of us, who said that we had done well, that in the conditions it was worth another grade – Severe. And I suppose he was right, in our big boots in the wet we had indeed done well.

The Fourth Age was not such a good one for Grooved Arête. As a mere ‘Very Difficult’ my mind relegated it in value as a fresh set of desirables came into view with the crossing of each grade boundary, even to the hitherto unimagined heights of ‘Extremely Severe’. During this Age the climb came to be seen as suitable for the unroped ‘solo’ climber and for the ailing. I remember doing the climb one chilly November day when I had a heavy cold and, I was told, should not have been out at all. But out I was and none the worse for it. Peter Burden (once of this Club) chose Grooved Arête for the return to the rocks of Stan Winstanley (now of this Club) after treatment for illness. All this may be seen as showing the climb insufficient respect. It did not forget.

In the Fifth Age Grooved Arête returned to respectability. Now into my seventh decade, ability and aspiration went into decline and what I needed was cause to re-visit the old favourites for reason other than to find them more problematic than I remembered. I was lucky to link up with Margaret Hart, experienced in the mountains but new to the rocks. Grooved Arête reacted to years of hurt in the Fourth Age by expelling me from the chimney crack that is the first pitch. It was only overcome after effecting a personal size reduction by propelling my rucksack onto a ledge above and it was still – very difficult. But the meat of the matter is the top half of the climb where an intricate route finds a way up forbidding ground. The sun squinted through a skyline notch silhouetting the last of a team ahead disappearing over the top. Suddenly it The line of Grooved Arête from the felt lonely. On the bit of rock known as the Heather Terrace, photo courtesy of UKC. Knight’s Move slab I wished Margaret was a Castle directly below me on the chess board not a Knight working her way across, risking a swing into space. She did not fall but then we both found it tough escaping from a tiny edge-of-all things stance. But that was just about it, done.

Unroped, we plodded wearily in shadow up to the summit, the jagged skyline rocks crested with gold. At last we stepped out of the gloom into the brilliant sunlight of a summer evening and only each other and Adam and Eve for company. It had been a good climb. Of a good one.

So, what of the Sixth Age of Grooved Arête? Not climbing it, that is for sure. I have a bad ankle and the Fifth Age experience left Margaret concerned as to what she would do if something happened to me on a climb. So, we have done a couple more things, both within bellowing distance of the road. But mind and memory remain sharp and so I do what I am doing now – write about Grooved Arête. I have even resorted to lists, compiling a list of all the climbs I have done and wishing I had kept a diary. Desperate stuff, not the climbs, the resorting to list-making. Seven named rock climbs on the East Face of Tryfan, just in case you were wondering.

The Seventh Age of Grooved Arête is yet to come for me, so I do not know what it will be like. Can I look forward to being sans teeth, sans taste, sans eyes, sans everything, the climb fading from my mind and the rocks becoming what they were at the beginning, just rocks? We humans imprint whatever fictions we choose on the mountains, whether they be our climbs, or the stories imagined onto the rocks of Uluru by the Aboriginal people of Australia. After all this is stripped away, only the rocks remain.

I write now thinking of a friend who died recently and wondering what passes through the mind at the end of days. Nothing of Grooved Arête or any other climb I expect. But one thing I have found is that on or just after a good climb I experience life – friendship, beauty, being alive - more intently than in the ordinary course of things. So perhaps even after other memories have fallen away, I might still feel the wind and the rain at The Haven and see the jagged skyline rocks crested with gold before I step out of the shadow into the summit sunlight.

Tryfan’s imposing East Face with its various arêtes, buttresses and gullies. Photo courtesy of Karl Page.

Welsh 3000s (15 Peaks) – Dave Appleton

After a period of reasonably consistent training following an injury earlier in the year, I really wanted to have another crack at the with as minimal logistical faff as possible. After a another thoroughly enjoyable outing at the Welsh 1000s race at the beginning of June, I figured the time was right to have a go before heading off to Switzerland for the duration of July. As it happened, I was out with my research group doing some fieldwork in the a couple of days before the summer solstice, so decided that the Friday (solstice eve) would be a good shout before everyone descended on for the longest-day proper.

After finishing up our work on the Thursday, I stashed a bottle of water under a broken wall in Nant Peris, and another under a bag of compost in the Ogwen and headed over to the PCU hut on the path to get an early start Friday morning. Arose at first light around 04:30, got fed, packed and walked up to the summit of Snowdon, arriving around 06:25. It was proper dreich up top, with very poor visibility and a relentless drizzle. Started my watch and set off at 06:28 on the dot.

On the North Ridge of – greasy!

I overtook a few teams on Crib y Ddsygl having ticked off , and another few on Crib Goch before picking a terrible line through Cwm Glas (one to recce properly in future). Once in Nant Peris, I had a few swigs of water and got shifting again. The slog up to , as anticipated, was horrible, but seemed to be over much quicker than I’d expected. Didn’t bother stopping, and headed onwards to take in , and . Got across no bother, albeit a bit sun affected, and down the screes to Bwlch Tryfan without hitting the deck and then up Tryfan’s south Ridge to the summit.

I descended the heavily eroded Western Gully (which is starting to get very sketchy in places), back into the Ogwen and recovered the other water. Took a conscious 15 minutes at this point just to cool down after our heat stroke epic last year, to take on plenty of water and some peanuts before getting going again.

The and the from .

Opted for the East Ridge of Pen yr Ole Wen as its terrain I know, and I believe the south ridge is also in a bad way after lots of Paddy Buckley Round and 3000s attempts. Received some very kind words of encouragement from a chap on the summit, which was greatly appreciated. Onto Dafydd, some boulder hopping and ankle-rolling avoidance across the top of Ysgolion Duon, and just about found the trod heading out towards – always forget just how much of a deviation this top is. Took a direct line up lots of scree from Yr Elen to Llewelyn, took some scanning on the move to find a useful trod, then across to . Looking south from .

Getting very tired at this point. Heard some footsteps running towards me from behind, so picked up the pace thinking that I’m not getting overtaken this far in. Ended up have a chat with the guy, turns out he was just doing a loop from Bethesda so quickly binned the idea of keeping up with him and his fresh limbs. Up to Carnedd Gwenllion, quick pivot, onto the wide trod and the last bit of steep onto the shoulder of Foel Fras. Nearly decked it trying to boulder hop to the summit, as I do every time that I visit this one, but arrived sans injury, sprawled on the trig and stopped the watch. 39.5km, 2986m of ascent, 7 hours/41 minutes/38 seconds. A bloke crossing the stile shouted “good work mate” with a smile and nod. Must know the score, and I must’ve looked boxed. Hoovered up some emergency sausage rolls, gave my mate Rob a call to let him know I was there in one piece and started to descend down to Bethesda. Forgot that this was another 10km, so nipped into Tesco and saw off 6 pints of Milk, 4 chocolate eclairs and another 2 sausage rolls before getting a taxi back to Llanberis. Job done. Trig point on Foel Fras. Some photo evidence that it wasn’t all a blag. Tremadog Climbing Weekend – Mike Morgan

Two days of mountain biking (in typical Welsh 30-degree heat!) had made me a bit tired. The weather has led to some very overgrown trails and the heat was so bad in Penmachno that I actually sat in a running stream for a while to cool off.

I was glad to find some of my old climbing partners had turned up at the hut for the planned weekend. Owen (from Canada in the UK for the summer), Alison (from London) and fellow members Si Green and Richard Taylor. With the odd numbers we decided to climb as a two and a three. With the weather looking like it may break we decided instead of a big mountain route to go to Tremadog where the sun is always guaranteed to shine.

Owen would lead one group and Richard the other with Craig Ddhu wall selected as the first climb, a good choice, although familiar to myself having lead Si Green up it many years ago. It would be a new Welsh Classic for the others. Owen led off first seconded by Alison, then Richard seconded by me and Si Green. Funnily I remembered where the holds are as you always seem to do when you are on a climb you have led before. This would be the first time I had climbed in two years and hoped the new hip would be up to it.

The airy corner and the no hands traverse seemed easy enough, but the final pull into the scoop on left had me stumped - I think when I did it last, I did the VS variation to the right. Eventually with a bit of huffing and puffing and using the specialist old persons knee technique I reached the top. Some groping around in the undergrowth and a walk down for some or an easy abseil for those who preferred it, we were down.

After some refreshment it was off to Boboo wall (as there was a lot of rain in the air) for Alison's first lead and some easy damp climbing to finish. A quick call into Eric's café - I was surprised to find the old second-hand toilet I had in the back of my van that I gave to Eric 25 years ago, as a quick repair, still in operation at the café - and back to the hut. Sunday we were joined by Andy Garland and some proper Welsh weather. After giving up on walking the Mushroom garden, we diverted across in some rough weather for a lap of Llyn Idwal, had a look at the old bridge at Ogwen and then the cafe in Bethesda to finish the weekend.