the nostalgia project - The Quiet, Ireland (1980)

The route

The Quiet is a route - probably the best route - at Little Killary, a minor single-pitch cliff in Connemara, Ireland, named for the sea inlet just below it. The area is also often referred to as Salrock Pass, after the ancient trail that runs under the cliff, connecting Little Killary bay with the dramatic fjord Killary Harbour. On a clear day it is a beautiful place with long views out over the Atlantic.

Looking west from the highest point above Salrock Pass, 1998.
Little Killary bay on the left, KIllary Harbour entrance on the right, Inishturk island on the horizon.

The route takes the easiest line up an abrupt, seemingly laser-cut 70 degree slab in the middle of the cliff. Gear is sparse and fiddly, earning the route at least HVS or "Hard Very Severe" in Britspeak (strangely the Irish use their ex-colonists' grading system but not their currency), perhaps 5.9 R in YDS. The two other classic routes at Little Killary are The Pinnacle, a partially-detached tower at the seaward end, weighing in around "Very Difficult" or 5.4, and the runout Drown in the Sky, taking an overhanging face further uphill at E4, perhaps 5.11+.

The context

Little Killary cliff from the road. The Pinnacle on the left.

As Salrock Pass lies very visibly above the only road between our family cottage and the rest of the world, it grabbed my attention from a very young age. I would often organise to sit on the correct side of the car (left outbound, right inbound) so I could crane my neck toward it as we drove past. Eventually I discovered a climbing guidebook that included the cliff, describing four routes climbed in the 1960s. I spent a little time there by myself trying to match the detail to the physical reality. The Pinnacle was obvious, but the other routes less so. The best feature of the cliff was the laser-cut face, so I assumed it must have been climbed and convinced myself that it was Ivy Slab graded "Severe", about 5.5. A year or two later it dawned on me that it was harder than that and had yet to be climbed.

The ascent

More accurately: the attempt. From the diary: "August 1980 Tried a new route in Salrock Pass, no luck." Somehow I had persuaded my father, then in his mid 60s, with no roped climbing experience at all, to belay me. I remember very little of this day except the scramble up a decomposing gully, to set the top-rope, was sketchy, but had to be done confidently so that my parents would not get nervous. My mother's photo shows me reaching about one-third height, which was probably my high point.

Top rope attempt, summer 1980. Dad visible belaying on the right.

 Posing for my parents on top of The Pinnacle, summer 1980

Subsequent ascents

From the diary: "June 1983. Connemara plus JW + MP .... finally led The Quiet". The "finally" bit is mysterious, as it implies multiple tries, but the diary is silent on any attempt between 1980 and 1983. I do know that I visited Connemara twice with school friends in 1981 and 1982, and that we climbed some forgettable new routes on other cliffs in the area. I also know that the first ascent was not on-sight; at some point previously I had rappelled the line to clean off some dirt and check the gear placements.

Retrospectively I am not very fond of the name but it is at least better than my original idea: The Quiet One, the title of a song by John Entwhistle, the allegedly-introvert bassist with The Who, a band I unfashionably liked circa 1980. Someone persuaded me to truncate it, thankfully. "JW" and "MP" were James Wheaton and Martin Perry, friends from school and university respectively. We added another eight new routes to the cliff that summer.

First ascent, June 1983

About three years later I was back at the family cottage, visiting with my parents and my sister Sally who were already there for a longer holiday. I was one year into my post-university attempt at being a "full-time climber", having spent six months climbing in Australia then a summer trailing in the wake of Crispin Waddy, one of Britain's most eccentric and creative climbers. Crispin and I had spent a couple of weeks putting up the first routes on the terrifying limestone sea cliffs of the Aran Islands, just south of Connemara, after which I had hitchhiked alone to the cottage. I couldn't get a ride for the last ten kilometres of winding mountain road so hid my backpack full of ropes and climbing gear and walked the remainder in the dark; an oddly enjoyable and meditative experience. I recall arriving at the cottage around midnight, having to wake everyone up but receiving a warm welcome.

Once again I lassoed family members as belayers for Little Killary projects. I added two routes either side of the Quiet, then worked on the excellent and much-harder Drown in the Sky nearby. What I remember most from that period is that I was in great climbing shape after Aran and felt invincible; more so than at any point in my life before or since. While cleaning the new lines I would routinely solo up and down The Quiet as the most efficient way to move around the cliff, sometimes in front of my parents. As far as I recall they did not comment, but I wonder now whether I was scaring them? Poor Dad was battling myeloma, a bone marrow cancer, so probably had his thoughts elsewhere. Drown in the Sky was protected by just a couple of fixed pitons low down then some weird sideways RP's higher up. Factoring in the dodgy gear I think it was (then) a Brit E5 (5.11+ R), my first at that grade, and, with hindsight, probably the hardest trad route that I climbed at any point in the 1980s.

First ascent of Churchmouse, right of The Quiet, in September 1986

For various reasons I only visited Connemara a couple of times during the next decade, though on one short visit I re-equipped Drown in the Sky with four titanium pitons, making it safer, and probably dropping the grade to E4. In 1998 I re-climbed The Quiet on a visit with Shoko. It felt hard, more E1 (5.9 R) than HVS, and unthinkable without a rope. During that same period we visited Inishturk, an island visible on the horizon from Little Killary. We found it to be home to enormous sea-cliffs on its hidden west side.

Repeating The Quiet in 1998

I returned to Inishturk with various configurations of people to explore in 2002 and 2003. On the first of those expeditions, our team of semi-famous climbers (and me) were badly rained out and ended up spending a day at Little Killary. Surprisingly two of them declared it the best day of the trip. Even better, Glenda Huxter, at the time one of Britain's strongest female trad climbers, made the first repeat of Drown in the Sky and confirmed the difficulty.

All-star Brit trad team visiting Little Killary in 2002
(from left to right: Glenda Huxter, Dan Donovan, Emma Alsford)

The last time I climbed at Little Killary was in 2004. My friends Noel and Jane Jenkins were visiting Connemara with their daughter Laura. We climbed the three classics over a couple of mellow days. For the first time in my experience, there was even another group climbing there; as if it were an established respectable cliff.

My repeat of Drown in the Sky in 2004, Noel belaying

Noel and Jane Jenkins on The Pinnacle, 2004

And another thing ...

One of the best aspects of the climbing life is the way it subverts the usual topography of shared experience (countries, cities, towns, etc) and substitutes, well, rocks. Sometime around 2008, after a new job had taken me to the United Arab Emirates, I met another expat climber, Aodain O Laithimh, in Dubai. It took just a few minutes for the conversation to progress from "hello" to discussing The Quiet (and Inishturk). It turned out that Little Killary had once been his local crag too, when he had worked for a nearby adventure centre. Aodain and I have somewhat different tastes in climbing and have not climbed that much together, but the days I have spent with him have been memorable. Best of all a two day trip in his yacht, Moon Penny, to make the first ascent of The Pyramid, a 300m semi-detached tower of limestone choss on Oman's other-worldly Musandam coast.

The Pyramid (and the Barracuda Stack), Musandam, Oman. Just a bigger version of The Pinnacle, really.

Moon Penny moored between The Pyramid and Barracuda Stack, November 2010

Aodain following the last pitch on The Pyramid

the nostalgia project - Corner Buttress, UK (1979)

The route

Wintours Leap is the largest cliff in the limestone climbing area of the Wye Valley on the English/ Welsh border. It rises about 100m above the muddy wooded banks of the Wye, a few km north of where that river flows languidly into the Bristol Channel. Corner Buttress (graded VD or "Very Difficult", about 5.4) is the easiest multi-pitch route at Wintours; a series of short walls and corners. The route has multiple variations and even an eliminate version called The Problems, linking a series of harder mini-pitches.

The context

Wintours was one of the closest cliffs to my school, in particular being conveniently en route to the Brecon Beacons in Wales, where the school's Duke of Edinburgh Award group customarily went backpacking. Despite many visits to Wintours between 1978 and 1987 - it was also not far from my undergraduate university in Bristol - I have just the one photo of the cliff in my archive. Even worse, for reasons long since forgotten, it primarily features my left foot.

EB boot /  fleece pant combo with out-of-focus view of the moderate end of Wintours Leap.
Corner Buttress is hidden somewhere behind my knee.

The ascent

Wintours is a hike-down-climb-back-out cliff. My main recollection from that first visit was stepping out of a minibus at a pullout straight above the cliff, noting how far below us was the river and feeling mildly nauseous. Other than that, I remember nothing. I am sure the climb proved unintimidating as the ledges between the pitches are very generously proportioned, breaking up the exposure.

From the diary: "First ever self-bought pint in Chepstow". The most memorable part of the day was roaming unsupervised around the town post-climbing with my friend James Fenner, ostensibly to buy fish and chips, but actually in search of a quiet pub. James was a year older than me, much taller at the time and annoyingly adult-looking. He scored a pint with ease - but refused to buy one for me. Somehow I also managed to convince the barman that I was eighteen. I still remember being asked "when were you born, then?", my brain freezing in a panic and seconds seemingly stretching out into minutes as I tried to calculate the required answer. From then on, boozing accompanied almost all of these school climbing trips. I assume drinking-age law in Britain is more rigorously enforced these days.

Subsequent ascents

The diary mentions Corner Buttress eight times in total. By my university years I had led it and  soloed it, both up- and downwards. For a while I became interested in a thin face, not in the guidebook, between an arete pitch on The Problems and a corner on the regular route. The ledge beneath was both flat and wide so although the face started about 30m off the ground it was effectively a highball boulder problem. The diary records that I succeeded on it in March 1983 and that - competitive! - "nobody else could do it!". I vaguely recall that the hardest move involved a left hand gaston, though it was years before I first heard the term in use. There was no chalk on it, so it could have been a first ascent. At the time it never struck me to write it up as something new; bouldering was still a very low profile activity and there were probably only a handful of problems around the UK that people had bothered to name, and certainly none halfway up a rambling limestone moderate. Anyway, objectively it was not very hard. I wrote "5c!" in my diary which is - don't laugh - about V2.

In May that year I was back again just before exams: "soloed a bit up Corner B. and read notes for a while". It would be nice to report that this attitude to revising was effective but the evidence is not supportive; two years later I graduated with a dismal 2:2.

the nostalgia project - Heather Wall, UK (1978)

The route

Heather Wall is a popular single-pitch route at Froggatt Edge, a gritstone cliff on the east side of the English Peak District. I have no photographs, but there are plenty here. In the bizarre, wordy and misleading British grading scale Heather Wall rates HVD or "Hard Very Difficult", which means easy. Maybe 5.5 in YDS.

The context

I visited Froggatt on my first ever "proper" climbing trip in October 1978. By "proper", I mean that there were ropes and some other equipment in use and a couple of teachers from my school who were leading the routes ahead of us and providing various kinds of encouragement and (very) basic instruction. No harnesses - just ropes tied around the waist. And - shudder - body belays.

The properness was a contrast to the large volume of "improper" climbing I had been doing for several years previously. Throughout my childhood we spent every spring and summer holiday in Ireland, where my parents were renovating a stone cottage at a remote spot on the Atlantic coast. To keep myself entertained I scrambled endlessly around the surrounding area, a scraggly sheep-grazed peninsula with many small cliffs, rocky bays and little else. With the untroubled self-importance of a prepubescent boy I even penned little guidebooks to some of the rocks, for a potential audience of one. When he wasn't building, my dad and I would often hike the (then) trackless hills nearby, some of which are quite substantial.

So, well before 1978, I considered myself a climber (or a mountaineer - the distinction was blurry in those days) and had read earnest books like Chris Bonington's "Everest the Hard Way" and Joe Brown's "The Hard Years". The latter focuses quite a lot on the gritstone, where Joe was a significant pioneer, so on that first trip to Froggatt I was precociously able to identify some of the routes and burble on about their history. I have wondered since whether the teachers found that amusing or annoying? 

The ascent

From the diary: "Quite hard, but classic."All I remember is that I didn't fall or need a tight rope on Heather Wall, and may even have enjoyed myself. Reaching holds seemed to be a problem on some of the other routes we tried that day (my teenage growth spurt was still a few years ahead). Heather Wall follows a continuous crack up two slabs split by a ledge. From all that reading I had a theoretical understanding of hand-jams, which may have helped.

Subsequent ascents

In Easter 1980 a school friend and I persuaded our parents to let us camp and climb unsupervised in the Peak for a week, during which we spent one day at Froggatt. By then I owned a climbing harness and a rack, of sorts. My largest pieces were two Chouinard Hexentrics, a useful #8 (child's hand size) and a vast cowbell #11 (larger than any child appendage). They were not chosen based on any logical criteria, just what the shop had in stock on the day that I bought them. From the diary: "I led Heather Wall very proficiently." This conflicts with my memory; I remember topping out the route somewhat pumped and scared, with the #8 placed far below, still clutching the #11 in one hand and unsuccessfully willing it to fit in the too-narrow crack.

those vintage Chouinard hexentrics, #8 and #11

Weirdly I still own those hexes, despite having all my climbing gear stolen twice: once from the back of a car in 1986 then again from my already-ex-girlfriend's backpack in Barcelona airport in 1992 (complicated story ...). I think that the reason is that I had retired them from regular use long before either incident so they were instead sitting safely in storage.

Finally, from the diary, October 1981: "Soloed Heather Wall." Also on a school trip. By then I was leading routes graded VS or "Very Severe" (5.7 or 5.8 in YDS) so climbing Heather Wall had become trivial but as far as I recall the teachers didn't actually condone soloing. I assume no-one was watching.

And another thing ...

Many conversations with north American climbers about UK climbing run something like this:

NA Climber: "You must have climbed on the grit?"

Me: "Yes, but there are lots of other types of rock in Britain."

NA Climber: "Oh." <looks puzzled ... changes subject>

I suppose it may seem unlikely that a small country could have any variety in its geology. After all, the Coast range of British Columbia, which could swallow Britain whole, is more or less one big lump of indented granite. But surely some of those Reel Rock segments, filmed at distinctly ungrit cliffs like Dyers Lookout or Dumbarton, would have changed perceptions by now? Apparently not. This topic will recur in future posts.

Messing around on grit, early 80s, de rigeur EB's and Helly Hansen fleece pants