the nostalgia project: Twinkler, UK (1997)

The route

Trwyn Llwyd is a vowel-free gabbro  sea cliff in the esoteric Welsh climbing area of North Pembroke. Twinkler is a two pitch HVS (~YDS 5.9) that wanders across the cliff finding the easiest line between much harder routes. In the 1990s it was graded VS.

The context

For all sorts of reasons best left undocumented, 1997 was a chaotic year for me. The frequency of my weekend climbing was about the same as usual but I was very distracted and did little of note.  In grade terms, the highlight was a trip to El Chorro in Spain in January where I redpointed a 7b fairly easily. One unusual feature of the year was that Dan (mentioned twice before in this blog and likely to recurr again) rented a room from me in the north London flat that I had just bought. Inevitably this meant that we climbed together more often.

In May we spent a long weekend in the North Pembroke. I believe the  motivation was that a new guidebook had just come out. Photos show that we dossed two nights in a pub car park; a typical strategy in those days. On Saturday and Sunday we visited four cliffs, roping up for several routes in the E1-E3 range, most of which seemed somewhat less worthwhile than the guidebook promised.

(fresh) Airbnb - 90's style

The Economist and the Financial Times - essential accessories for the travelling Londoner

The ascent

On Monday, the diary notes that it was "scorchingly hot" and that we climbed unroped most of the day, mostly on very easy short pitches. To end the day Dan suggested a "convoy solo" of Twinkler. It had been several years since I had last soloed a multi-pitch and I remember feeling some concern. However VS was comfortably within my limit so objectively the risk was low. Dan soloed often at that time. I acquiesced.

Convoy soloing - two or more people climbing unroped on the same route at the same time - was something I had done a few times prior to this. Especially ten years before at Arapiles, when I and most of my regular partners were very young and foolish. Aside from moonlight idiocy on D Minor, mentioned here, I got notably scared onsighting the 100m slab classic Brolga unroped. Both I and my friend Pete found it much more delicate, insecure and irreversible than we had anticipated. A unique aspect of this dumb activity is the potential opportunity to be private witness to your partner's death (or vice-versa) as a section is tackled which the other has already completed. I still remember Pete and I's nervous banter, wide-eyes and various "what the fuck are we doing" philosophising on that ascent.

Dan starting Twinkler

Twinkler lured us in gently with a traverse above the sea that was easy and unexposed. In fact, I recall absolute no issues with the route until the very end where a short overhanging crack connected a small ledge with the top of the cliff. Dan did this quickly as I waited on the ledge. As I followed, it dawned on me that the crack was awkward and would be a challenging down-climb. The final move was a pull over a bulge on to gently-sloping terrain. I recall some dependence on a shallow unsatisfactory hand jam. I paused and looked at Dan who I think mumbled something like "it is OK" but looked worried. I paused a while longer. It was a bad place to stop; fatiguing eventually. The fall would have been 30m or more toward the sea, possibly into water of uncertain depth, possibly on to boulders. I doubt more than a few seconds passed in total, but as the cliche goes: they were "long" seconds. Finally I pulled the move, there being no other options and of course it was fine.

Researching this blog post, I stumbled over notes on a 2017 ascent of Twinkler that may shed some light on why the route felt so marginal: "[pitch] 2 felt hard even for HVS 5a as per the 2013 guide to finish up the steep final crack though i might have done the finish to "Better Led than Dead" climbing up a steep crack above a small step down in the ramp, either way this was excellent and well protected but felt E1 5b."

Subsequent ascents

I have not been back to North Pembroke.

I have also not soloed anything substantial since 1997. Where we live now in Squamish, there is an abundance of solid moderate climbing, moments from our front door, that is very well-suited for unroped climbing. But I don't do it. I believe I could run many laps with the required focus but in time complacency would be inevitable. Best not to start.

A case in point: in September this year I slipped off the final 5.4 pitch of a ten pitch new route that I had helped establish a few months earlier and had already climbed five times. I was seconding with far too much slack in the system, so fell the length of the pitch to ledges, bruising a few ribs and opening a spectacular though unserious scalp wound. No big deal but it could have been much worse. If anyone had asked me in advance how many times I could climb that pitch without falling I would have estimated thousands, not five ...

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