Yesterday had been spectacular, soaring from the autumn trees onto the warm Tremadoc rock. The boy woods (currently in stunning form) selling the barn door crux move a neat dummy and forcing past the steep overhanging crack to drill home 'Valor' and two points as we approach the end of the season. Bringing up the rear I was determined to use a good selection of expletives rather than my prussik loops (tip of the day – always keep some expletives clipped to your chalk bag). A fine day, a fine route, no more needed to be said or done. Tea and cakes at Eric's.
You've seen the photograph haven't you? Ed Drummond strung out and dwarfed by the colossal sea cliff as the spray explodes at the base 100' below. The name as well, 'A Dream of White Horses' so evocative and poetic. I like a route to have a good name. The other week at Dewerstone I had the chance of 'Climbers Club Ordinary Route' or 'Leviathan', guess which one I chose. So destiny has brought me here like a moth to the flame.
The build up is important, it's all in the head I'm told. Visualisation…. I'm sitting in this dark, drab B & B in Holyhead waiting for my breakfast, sombre classical music discreetly plays on the radio and I'm thinking how much like a funeral parlour the place is. I don't' share my thoughts with Rupert, he's too busy telling me what a nightmare he had on the route years ago. The talk is of death scrambles, cold and wetness. And then he mentions Paul Pritchard's horrendous fall into the zawn. So, the visualisation phase complete we head off to Gogarth with a belly full of grease and a head full of doubt.
Finding routes from the top of sea cliffs is never easy and this was no exception. A tremendous amount of faffing around ensued. Tip toeing like greased giraffes through steep mud and heather, a slip away from oblivion. "She came over our heads like a rag doll," Dick Broomhead had said in the hut last night when he described how a girl had committed suicide above him on his new route 'oblivion' in Avon.
I don't like this. I don't like this almost as much as I don't like abseiling, which is the next test of my visualisation skills (you know… visualising the rope breaking as you ping into space, visualising the loose rock etc.).
I'm down to the niche now and busily nesting myself into a womb of safety. "Ab Clear!" right lets have a look at this beauty now.
Wen Zawn yawns away from me in greys and browns, the Cappuccino Sea foams gently over the rocks below. The wall adjacent to me seems slabby and you can tell it will go but the overhanging wall 200' away? We're going there?
My reverie is broken as Rupert arrives all calm efficiency, plucking bits of gear off my rack, as I stand passively rooted into my loom of security. If only I could stay here….
Woods leads the first pitch down easy ground then across a tricky wet patch to take up position in the crack of 'Wen'. Seconding a traverse can be as serious as leading it. At least when you're leading you don't have to look at the 40' of slack between you and the next bit of gear as you crab along. It was easy ground anyway and I was just happy to have started the adventure.
Geared up now and Pitch 3 lies ahead. A diagonal flake cleaves its way up for 50'. Massive holds, wet in places, dainty footwork, I can smell salt and vinegar crisps? One of my cow bells clanks in chunkily and if we had a bus we could… you know? The crack runs out and a broken wet chimney beckons me out onto an awkward wall. We're heading for the concrete chimney 15' away. This feels a bit more intimidating and I'm wishing I'd got my boots resoled and visualising suede on wet rock….nice. "Joe Brown used to climb wet rock in his woollen socks you poof" I say to myself as I perfect my technique of not applying any weight to my right foot.
I'm there now, in the concrete chimney and that's exactly what it is. I reckon a good 4:1 mix of muck and aggregates, perfect for a bomber hanging belay and with the time I take it might even go off. Rupert sails steadily up and over and informs me that I'm "in the wrong f'ing place you useless git!"
Pitch 3a ensues (not in the guidebook) as Rupert takes the top roped lead down to the obvious (now) belay 10' below. This is indeed a fortuitous mistake because it means I get to lead the final pitch.
Now, this is where you need to get it right and I still can't see how we escape this maze of geometric shapes and broken overhangs. Rupert patiently reads the guide book description for the sixth time and talks of rhombuses and I wish I'd paid attention during primary school maths
Just as I set off the waves below roar up shoat of derision at the feeble matchsticks above. Why now? Forcing me to look down into that dizzying cauldron of hard, wet slimy sea below. I'm told it's the bow wave from the Irish Ferries.
The roof above is streaming water onto me gently as it filters last week's rain back into the sea. The peg mentioned in the guide is now a useless twig of corrosion, a relic of Drummond's past glories. A triangular blade of chalked up rock points down to the sea. Both hands on this I launch down and around the awkward bulge obscuring my path to the next corner. The sun has crept around now and bathes the West-facing wall; I'm feeling good now. The drop onto the slab looks more difficult than it turns out to be. You can't be too careful though, each move has to be weighed up and planned ahead in anticipation of the way that gravity may pivot and pull at your awkward frame.
On to dry ground now and I can afford to look back across my trail of bright and shiny things and grin at Rupert. One last committing move under the double overhang and I'm into the escape route. Bomber gear and a peg and I can even afford to drop back down to take one final look at the day's work. The low sun drenches this amphitheatre of nervous games and I savour the atmosphere before scuttling up huge loose holds to the block belay above.
Rupert gambles up enthusing about the route and we watch seals bob their heads curiously as we coil the ropes.
If I've whetted your appetite remember, it's a serious place. Be sure of yourself and your partner before you try it. The value of your investment may go up as well as down and you may not get back the amount you originally invested.
Rupert endures my solo rendition of 'Ride of the Valkyeries' as we cruise down the A55 towards home.
Ian Waghorn. Oct. 2001