Having abandoned Plan A (hut meet in Betys-y-coed) due to a condemned gas supply, we hatched Plan b (camping meet in Nant Peris). Five of us (me, guido, crofty, Keith W and crofty's aussie climbing mate Geoff) then abandoned Plan B every morning due to minging weather in the pass and fled to Gogarth where we climbed in glorious sunshine. The Evans brothers, made of sterner stuff than us, remained to cllimb in the cllag on Lliwed.
This was my first experience of sea cliff climbing and I found Gogarth as awesome and intimidating as its reputation. One of the most disconcerting things was having to make commiting abseils down to the start of routes without the chance to eyeball them first. The steepness and sheer scale of the cliffs also did their best to make me wibble – Toto, we were definately not in Brimham Rocks any more. On the other hand it was spectacularly beautiful, with huge drifts of pink thrift and white campion, colonies of nesting razorbills and almost meditteranean blue waves crashing against the cliffs. There were also colonies of the Lesser Anoracked Twitcher which made some aspects of life quite difficult – no sooner had you found a quiet spot to drop your keks than you looked up to see a massive telescope peering down.
Guido and Keith headed up Blanco, while JIm introduced me and Geoff to Gogarth climbing via Lighthouse Arete, a very gentle VS with only one tricky section. After topping out on that it was back down the abseil rop to Rap – or was it Pel? Arriving on the bottom ledge we found a bus queue. Another team were just starting up, then a third team appeared behind us. By this time we were so squeezed up the ledge resembled a "most people in a phone box" record breaking attempt. As we peered upwards yet another face appeared looking hopefully down at the ledge. Our seven heads all shook in unison.
Rap/Pel taught me a few lessons about sea cliff climbing. 1) voice communication is very difficult above the wind and waves 2) Route finding is a lot trickier than on gritstone outcrops. Traversing a ledge and wondering at what point I should start going upwards again, I looked back down to Jim, who had the guidebook. Jim gave me a cheery thumbs up, so I continued traversing. The traverse seemed a tad long so I looked again – no, Jim was still giving me the thumbs up so onwards I went. Jim, meanwhile, wondered why I was ignoring his clear "now go directly up" signal….and this is how we came to do Pel instead of Rap.
Jim cunningly squeezed in one more lead on Holyhead Mountain, a deceptively innocuous looking groove, Romulus, VS 5a, while waiting to intercept Guido and Keith on their way back from the Main Wall. Fish, chips, beers with the Evans brothers in the Vanwy Arms, then hangovers all round next morning.
Next day the weather in Llanberis was gopping so it was back to Gogarth and the sunshine. Jim wanted to do some routes at Wen Zawn, so in honour of the aussie contingent Guido took us walkabout, leading us directly there via Main Wall, Holyhead Mountain, South Stack, Bognor Regis and Kathmandu. We then split into two groups as, somewhat overawed by the reputation of Wen Zawn, I felt trying to even second HVS (the lowest grade there) risked being unable to get up the poxy thing. Guido pulled the short straw and came to Main Wall with me to do some VS routes. I was utterly intimidated by the scale and steepness of Main Wall, and left both leads on the first route (Imitator, VS 4c) to Guido, but chilled out a bit after that and we alternated leads on Bezel, VS 5a ( Guido taking the 5a pitch, a rather frisky pull up an overhang ). Finished around six again, having had a brilliant day, met up with Team Wen Zawn, who had done Dde, which they said was the best route of the weekend, and Bank Holiday Bypass, and managed a respectful tour of Vivian Quarry in order to gasp over Comes The Dervish from a safe distance before returning to more beers.
Got up on monday and this time the wet grey mingingness had extended over the whole country so we decided to call it an excellent weekend and came home.
Photos to come