by Steve France

Bill Hine was spread out on the back seat clutching his mouth in a desperate attempt not to laugh, as I stood outside the car saying: “Yes Mr Policeman, No Mr Policeman, forty miles per hour I think, Mr Policeman…”

Chris Wright, sitting in the front, thought the grovelling was far more entertaining than the car stereo so, turning it down, he was just in time to hear:

“And I won’t do it again Mr Policeman”.

I entered the car soon after and shut the door with a clunk. The resulting burst of laughter must have been overheard by the rookie who was walking back to his police car. His pride had already been severely dented during his frantic efforts to catch us up. However, the score was now one all and we were on our way to Anglesey.

Since the opening of the M56, the journey is considerably quicker than it used to be, but there’s still time to reflect back to those Welsh days when every route turned out to be a classic or an epic adventure that gets worse every time you told it. A portion of my memory is always reserved for Idwal Slabs and the mass ascents by the Club in big boots and cags. The Castle’s hard core climbing team twelve years ago was a motley crew led by Sheila MacDonald and her never ending fag and with John Ward bringing up the rear, seen but never heard. A few years later some new faces came onto the scene and the climbing grades started to rise to 5b 5c. This was the time Bill was introduced to the Castle by Dave Bates and Keith Naylor and Dick Savage Tricky Dicky who was an earlier Castle climber left for India to achieve inner transcendental harmony. In those days a Castle ascent of Cenotaph Corner , Cemetary Gates and Vector was an achievement, but alas these routes along with many more have been down graded to “just good classics”. For me the mountain classics will always hold that extra magic which the modern routes lack at the moment. Maybe it’s the atmosphere or could it be just a pleasant memory?

All three of us in the car were quite adept at the modern routes but on this occasion, after many months pestering, I finally convinced Chris to have a go at a sea cliff classic for a change. The car ground to a halt on the gravel surface of South Stack car park. The air was damp due to the sea spray in the blustery wind so that by the time we had our rucksacks and ropes packed the “What am I doing here?” syndrome was setting in.

“OK, where’s the crag?” asked Chris unenthusiastically.

After walking in a rough north easterly direction, for twenty minutes, we were above the sea cliffs of Gogarth. Past visits to the cliff had resulted in climbing the usual Pentathol , Gogarth , Cordon Bleu and Central Park but unfortunately a large proportion of the routes suffer from access problems during high tide. According to Sods Law, no matter what time you arrive it will always be high tide! Today was no exception. Reading the Guide Book about high tide approaches was depressing and when we consulted a group of “knowledgeable” climbers who were festering between some boulders they said, “You have no chance for at least three hours”. So, acting on this information, we set off to Wen Slab. Maybe we could come back later or tomorrow but now a new goal had raised our enthusiasm - Quartz Icicle or Wen . Anything except Dream of White Horses , not because Dream is a poor route - quite the opposite. For any first time visit it is highly recommended, but I had climbed it three times before with different parties and there had been no time left for anything else.

On arrival it was decided to walk down the gully on the right as you face out to sea for the spectacular view of the zawn thus giving an impressive vista of all the routes. There it was in all its splendour - Froggatt Edge on a Sunday afternoon in summer! It was like Butlins Holiday Camp in the late sixties. Quartz Icicle was being climbed! Wen also! There were climbers everywhere… and no less than three parties on Dream alone! The overall scene was stunning and very reminiscent of Baggy Slabs with Midnight Cowboy , Kinky Boots and Sexilegs all being climbed at the same time.

Chris was not impressed, as our only option was to trek back to Gogarth and wait for the tide rather than wait for the crowds to subside on Wen Slab. Back we went, but this time we geared up at the top of the descent path and climbed down the small gully to the bottom of the cliffs. It was far better to wait here than to brood at the top at least we could look at the sea level traverse and climb along at the earliest possible moment.

When we arrived it was high and dry by a long way, in fact it looked passable at most times except for maximum high tide. Our feelings were mixed: happy to be able to do at last the route we had set out for and cheesed off because we had turned into bigger pratts than the two “knowledgeable” climbers we met earlier.

Traversing across the bottom of the cliff took no more than a few minutes. The ropes were quickly uncoiled and we were ready to climb Big Groove . Gogarth’s Big Groove is not particularly difficult by today’s standards and rose to fame during the “Hard Rock " days when its popularity increased tenfold. Its total height of 340 feet is climbed in three pitches of 5a 5c and 5a grading. Although this route had been climbed before by many Castle members, for me it was the one that had got away.

Bill took the lead on the first pitch and burned up the rock to disappear over a ledge some fifty feet up. Time lingered on with relatively little movement from the rope. “Are you belayed yet?” I shouted, only to be met by silence.

The silence went on for some twenty minutes broken only by the occasional jerk of the rope, until finally we heard the faint call: “Climb when yer ready”.

Chris set off and I followed some five minutes later, puzzled by the apparent speed of his ascent, especially above the ledge where the problem seemed to have occurred.

Upon reaching the ledge the puzzle became worse because Bill and Chris were sitting only twenty feet away with no obvious hard or even slightly difficult climbing between us. However, there was a seagull!

“Don’t disturb it, its nesting” whispered Bill, looking quite concerned that I might kick it off.

In fact, as I was traversing an absolutely desperate wall over the gull I did feel like kicking it off, especially when all it could do was look up at me with a “look at that silly bugger " expression on its beak!

Once on the belay ledge my immediate attention was on the second pitch that I was about to lead. From the stance, very little could be seen apart from the seepage lines of wet rock, with the mist and sea spray blowing up the groove. I was unable to convince Chris that this was the pitch he ought to lead, so I set off. A short wall led to the groove itself which was deceptively steep. In fact it gets steeper each time I think about it! I must confess that I’m not a particularly strong climber and I usually try and make up for that deficiency by technique however, that does not always work, especially on routes like Axle Attack and Body Machine where without strength and stamina you just don’t stand a chance of a clean ascent. Anyway, by now the groove was seeping with water and had got very, very, steep even steep enough to justify my owning up to using the peg! But it was only for a few seconds, honest!

I knew that hesitation below the peg would prove disastrous, because slowly but surely my forearms were beginning to ache with their solidification. The veins pulsed and stuck out like fossilised tree trunks, to be shortly followed by the involuntary uncurling of the fingers. With one last effort I managed to reach the bottom of a flake, and thrust my fingers right round it, preventing them from uncurling. How many times do you get into the situation when you’re twenty feet above your last protection, pumped out of your head and the flake does not allow the insertion of any useful gear?

The only option was to continue up the flake where it formed an apex and lasso a sling over it. What sounded like a good idea turned out to be a nightmare, as I laybacked up the flake higher and higher until the last runner was just a distant memory. However, there was one consoling factor - if I fell off now there would at least be a strong possibility I would land on that gull!

Almost there, but something didn’t seem right. Could it have been the groaning and creaking of the flake? After some thought I realised that the whole flake was bending and flexing with every layback thrust. Nervously peering round for a closer investigation, I saw the true thickness of the flake to be only half an inch. “It must be stronger that it looks, having remained on the route for so long” I thought, in a desperate attempt to convince myself that everything was just great. Lassoing the tip of the flake with a sling, I remembered the verse by Ben King: “Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stay but on.” What a load of garbage!

The karabiner clicked home and the tension eased as I boldly bridged up to the right below the belay stance and heaved my body onto a ledge. Standing up on the ledge was another matter but the whole performance is too embarrassing to describe here. The ledge was just right for one, and when Bill arrived soon after it was - for want of a better word - “cosy”. When Chris arrived, however, the ledge became a writhing mass of arms, legs, ropes and runners.

Chris had intended to lead through but the weather had turned increasingly nasty. Over the last hour, during the ascent of the second pitch, the clag had set in and spray was howling upwards in the vortex created by the groove. The whole effect made it look as though it were raining upwards! The decision had been made earlier that if I managed the second pitch we would go on, but if not we would abandon the route. Unfortunately there was no turning back now.

Chris set off up the final groove very slowly, as by now everything was totally saturated, even Bill and I. Rather than start singing “My favourite things” I began to think about sitting in front of a roaring open fire in the pub that night, swilling the amber nectar and talking of the day’s events especially giving Bill a roasting for wasting a good hour by being polite to the seagull!

By now we were well and truly frozen stiff with all enthusiasm long gone. The rope very slowly came to its end and assuming it was time to climb, I set off. I must admit and said to Chris at the time that his lead on that final pitch in the conditions that prevailed was superhuman. The fact that he managed to stay on at all is beyond me - let alone climb the soaking lichen pads and shattered rock flakes. At long last, the top was made by all three followed by the quickest descent via the path! on record.

There was no fire in the pub but there was a pool table well, you can’t have everything.