Wet days in Wales...

(This probably summed up our trip. You have got the love the expression on his face)

I went to Wales with Soames and well... it rained. To say that this was annoying was beside the point. It was very annoying. It wasn't like we didn't try. We spent the Wednesday chasing any chance of good weather all over north wales. We started off at the Lleyn Peninsular, intending to go new routing in the Quarries but the weather came in hard there. We actually had driving hail at one point and this stopped any thoughts of new routing as the slabs and micro-granite get pretty slippy when wet. We then tried out luck heading over to Gogarth but this proved to be a pointless activity. Well almost pointless because it looked dry over the Slate Quarries so we headed straight there. Arriving at the slate we first went to look at Opening Gambit (MXS) which is a route that I've been looking for a partner for since I can remember. The route has changed in line a couple of times since it's original FA, mainly because of some very larger rockfalls which have affected several routes in the area. The rockfalls have left a lasting impression in the form of several isolated tottering scree slopes on the ledges that you need to climb onto or across. We took a really good look at it and came to the conclusion that Soames has got children (and therefore some responsibility) and that I didn't want to die. I guess this'll have to wait a little while or until I find a partner with less sense. 

We then took a look at the never never land slab, with a view to me completing Khubla Khan but alas it had a big wet streak running down it. In the end another plan was hatched. This one involved squirming through the blocked up entrance that leads to the "tunnel of love". It is literally pitch black down there as the slate seems to absorb all the light but from there it leads to the bottom of Australia. We then walked and scrambled across the tottering piles of scree to the Rognon, situated in the middle of the lower oil drum glacier (you've simply got to love the names they give things in the slate quarries). He we set about actually doing some climbing, but low and behold as soon as we'd roped up, the weather broke. We forced ourselves into a tiny little cave in the scree that we christened "the Captain Oats Cave" after a comment from Soames ("I'm just going outside for the lemon vodka, I might be a while").When the weather relented we managed to make our way up the scree, after trundling off a few large boulders (for fun) to the salt-pans level. This is another bizarre place, like many of the little micro-environments that seem to have developed in the quarries. 


In the summer it dries and looks like a traditional salt pan, but when it rains whatever it is that's spilled all over the floor seems to absorb all the moisture and expand. This then becomes spongy, wet and soft. It's just so bizarre. From here we managed to make it onto the upper oil drum glaciers which then leads onto the other levels, passing some amazingly well rusted old quarry machinery. I really should have stopped to take some more pictures. I did rain on us again as we tried to make our way out of the quarries, but there was plenty of places to shelter in the form of blast shelters and quarrymans huts along the was so me mostly stayed dry. With bad weather looming overnight, we decided that staying at Eric's bunkhouse would be better than camping in a soaking wet nant peris (even though it has a pub). Soames has cooked, like usual, and we feasted on something that had duck, chorizo and vegetables in it. We found the lemon vodka in the end too.

(view from the Captain Oats cave)

With good weather in the morning and a new plan we breakfasted (on what I can only describe as breakfast stew, baked beans with black pudding and precooked sausage mixed in). As the weather on the Lleyn was damp it was straight back to the fastest drying rock in wales. Our plan for the day was to try one of the "grand days out" as described in the new slate guide. We walked in, talking the earliest path off up the scree slopes as this is slightly easier than walking up the inclines and dumped all our kit on the Siding's level. I'd actually got a little pack that me and Rachel found somewhere that would do for carrying up some food, water & the guidebook for the day. This little pack basically soldiered on all day, dispite the fact that it was slowly disintergrating as we gained height. It has opened my eyes to the use of a seriously lightweight pack, just for carrying shoes etc up routes. Previously I've used an alpkit gordan which is a little large but works pretty well. 


We started with Looning the Tube (HVS 5b) which neither of us wanted to really lead (sadly we both think it's a poor route) and it was seeping a little. I led it, uninspired and blasted on up to the top to belay before bringing up Soames. He then selected a nice long F6a+ who's named escapes me for the next pitch. It was quite a nice route, spoilt by a large ledge at one thirds height. I think the high rockovers from the top section more than made up for it. Next up was M.I.L Arete (E1 5b) as I'd rather do a trad climb that I've not done before. This was a pretty nice routes and clearly something I should have done long before I did it and it felt a little easy for the grade. Still there was only 3 pieces of gear in the whole climb (actually there was 4 but I missed one out, cuz I'm 'ard, ennit?). We then puzzled around on the next level looking for a route that caught our inspiration. Zippies First Acid Trip (E1 5c) straight away caught my eye but it was Soames lead and he picked the line of [insert climb name when I find the damn guidebook] at E2 6a. Soames gave it a bloody good go and almost nailed the crux move on his second attempt but the difficulties didn't seem to end for a while so he reversed it all and sent me up Zippies... instead.


This arguably took longer than it would have took Soames to finish his route but I think he might have seen me looking longingly at the lovely left edge of Zippies.I started up this we ease, seeing as it was a hard 5b move to make the ledge at one thirds height. From here it was a series of harder moves to gain the first (any only) bolt before the difficulties really started. I took me ages of going up and down and trying this move and that to make some head way. Eventually I tried a really high step on a hold that I had convinced myself would either a) explode off the face (unlikely) or b) let my foot slide off it, sending me crashing down the wrong side of a sharp and pointy-ish arete. What actually happened was c) nothing, I just made the move albeit a little shakily. This gained some good holds and more importantly some good gear. I happily topped out and stared in horror at the pile of talus that I would need to construct a safe belay out off. Long slings, blocks, some rusted metal work and a braced stance later I yelled I was safe and Soames followed up. 


We were now approaching the deadline. Apparently at 1513 it would rain, according to the weather report we'd seen in the morning. Now not that I normally put that much faith in the weather report but we'd not got any waterproof jackets or anything so we'd be a little exposed if the weather did hit. We this is mind Soames still chose Plastic Soldier (F6a+) as the final route. It was quite fitting as it was 40 metres long (131.233596 feet for those who prefer an antiquated series of measurment). Soames climbed in well considering the reachy difficult climbing and small amount of loose material that was on route. It was about this time that we must have noticed a guy who was attempting to solo a route on the back wall of australia call Big Thursday (XS 5c ABO). For people who don't know XS stands for eXtremely Suicidal (or something of that nature) and the ABO is an alpine grade for something more serious than ED4. Basically this was a big loose and serious route... and this guy was going for it solo. I have to say I was pretty impressed by this attempt but I was also a little worried. By the time Soames had topped out and brought me up the soloer had been stood on the same ledge 2 pitches up for about half an hour. Soames seemed to think something was up as the guy kept whistling and making enough noise to gain our attention. In the end Soames asked if he was alright, the reply we got was "errr... I could do with a rope?"


I'd like to say that we sprung into action like a well trained rescue team and quickly ran over to him, but we didn't. I think that it was commonly accepted that as he'd (rather politely) waited until we finished and had not actually asked for rescue until we called him that the ledge he was standing on was alright and he was in no immediate danger. So instead we counted the levels we needed to climb up and coiled the ropes up properly so we'd have no problems getting to him. Then we walked over and discussed that he's was getting the old "sling round the waist" harness. Needless to say it was pretty serious terrain we encountered getting to him. In the end Soames sat at the top and belayed me down the massive scree slope above where I set up some secondary anchors to get a rope down to him. The whole rescue must have taken less that 30 minutes and he was very grateful.


It turned out he had kids and worked at the beacon climbing wall, and as a way of saying thank you offered us some free climbing if we turned up there tomorrow. Sadly it was our last day but we thanked him none-the-less. He told us that he's had a dream to onsight solo all the XS routes in the quarries. I guess this was less of a dream and more of a nightmare, but it made him happy. We never did get his name though but we did make it down with the rain breaking on us!


What will I take away from this experience? For one thing I'll be getting a decent but lightweight sack for carrying things up routes with me. Doing link ups is a lot of fun because instead of focusing on what routes this sort of gets put on the back burner as completing the overall link up is more important. Another is that it's nice that we rescued that guy. Now I'd like to think that we rescued him for the good of rescuing him, but when it boils down to it I think we rescued him because we hope that if either of us got stuck in the same situation then someone would rescue us. At the end of the day I don't think rescue for the sake of the hopeful future rescue is a bad thing. We did the right thing at the end of the day. Soloing is soloing until it goes wrong, then it just seems to go back to normal climbing whereby you rely on those people are you.