A rather mad weekend... but with a sense of purpose

If last weekend (easter weekend) did anything, what it did was psyche me up for more climbing in a way that I've not felt in a while and like mot good climbing adventures it starts with a rather mad idea. The conditions were still in in North Wales but they wouldn't last forever. With this is mind but some time constraints I called up Finney with a simple plan... sleep out in the mountains and got climbing nice and early to guarantee that the route would still be frozen. I supposed you could view this as a mock alpine approach to winter climbing but did mean that I'd be able to get a night out in the mountains wild camping. How did it all go then?

I had time constraints in the form of an induction at Peak Pursuits on their mobile climbing wall (on the Friday morning) and then work (on said mobile climbing wall) at Trentham Gardens on the Sunday. This gave us from whatever time I finished my induction to technically Sunday morning, but instead of cutting it fine we opted to come back on the evening before. As soon as my induction was over I headed to Finney's house and we began the process of deciding on everything we'd need, then trying to fit it into two sacks for the walk in. We could have packed everything up much lighter than we did, but that would probably have made for a cold night. Instead we stuck a few luxury items in like a second sleeping bag (for me), Petrol MSR stove because it's more efficient for the amount of fuel and therefore we could brew up more and a tent instead of bivi bags. Normally I'd have plumed for bivi bags, but Andy kind of made the final decision on this and I'm grateful for it.

In my head I saw us packing up the sacks in like twenty minutes and heading off to wales, but in reality it took us a couple of hours. We ended up discussing each piece of gear and whether we should take it. I began to think Andy was a little nervous about going and worried about how warm he'd be over night. I long ago accepted that my sleeping bags have one advantage, they're lightweight but not warm so I knew I was in for a restless night. Then we got onto the food we'd be eating. Andy didn't quite fancy my idea of Smash powder and thus we ended up with pasta, thick vegetable soup and a piece of fresh salmon to boil up with the pasta. I'm not going to lie, I was skeptical.

By the time we did come to leave I knew we'd be walking in in the evening light and not the afternoon sunshine. This was even better as far as I was concerned as the light at that time of day puts a beautiful glow on almost everything it touches. We'd get to watch the sunset as it dipped behind the mountains. This is exactly what happened on our walk in. With heavier packs than the weekend before we were somewhat slowed down but it didn't matter. When I pointed out that I'd planned to camp actually up in Nameless Cwm in preparation for an ice route in the morning I got the distinct impression that Finney did not want to camp on the snow. We settled on a camping spot (after much searching around for a flat piece of ground that overlooked most to the back wall of devils kitchen. By now it was actually getting dark and there was a distinct change in the temperature as the sun dipped out of view. It was time for cups of tea and food to be sorted, by headtorch light.

Cooking was a fun game. I'd set up a kitchen area slightly away from the tent because it was out of the wind. With hindsight I'll just cook in the awning of the tent in future as I ended up doing that anyway. I'll get to lay in my sleeping then as well. As I've mentioned Finney had carried up a piece of fresh salmon, something I was sceptical of. His plan was to just throw it in with the pasta and allow it to cook through and break down, before adding the soup. This was probably the nicest wild camping food I've ever eaten and the smell of boiling salmon must have carried for miles over the Idwal area. It really did smell amazing.

Our evenings entertainment was in the form of a team of three climbing up Idwal stream, by headtorch light. We noticed them as we started eating and couldn't work out if they were stuck, involved in the rescue of just slow. I think they were probably having difficulty with a pitch because they soon speeded up their progress as the evening progress. They didn't start down the walk off until 1115 and by this time we'd retreated to the sleeping bags and were sipping hot chocolate (brewed in the awning!). Finney was going for the full “alpine” experience as he'd forgotten his roll mat and not realised until we started sorting out the kit in the car park. My car usually has a few odds and ends in it and we found two pieces of foam (normally sitting mats) that'd do the job. When Finney realized he'd forgotten his roll mat, his first thought was that he'd just sleep on his bag not wanting to miss out on a nights camping. I think this is testament to his sturdiness. Sleep came eventually and I'd closed my eyes and accepted that I'd have a cold, restless night.

To my amazement I didn't wake up during the night shivering, not did I wake up in the morning cold. I'd actually had a warm night in the sleeping bag... as poor as they are. I put it down to a few things like wearing my belay jacket to sleep in and sharing the tent which must have pushed the temperature up. We did oversleep but this was probably because we stayed up discussing our planned route for the day before. Originally I'd suggested Clogwen Left hand high up in Nameless Cwm. It was a route I'd attempted early on in the season last year when the second pitch of ice wasn't fully formed, but I'd already clocked that the top pitch had a fat load of ice on it. Finney wanted to climb a grade IV as well, but the only problem with this plan was that it was grade V. I was pretty psyched to try it but it was quite a grade jump for Finney, especially as it was his 4^th ice route. We also only had four ice screws with us. Idea's were thrown back and forward till Finney suggested East gully IV (3,4) which was supposed to be quick to come into condition and was a mixed route. Somehow this became our objective for the day.

I managed to make a brew from my sleeping bag in the morning. This might not seem like a big achievement but when you factor in I've borrowed a rather temperamental MSR XGR petrol stove it is, especially as I did it without melting the tent. I've been using this stove for a few weekends just because of the cold weather and it really impresses me. It is definitely the most economical stove I've used with regards to fuel and because of this I don't feel bad about leaving it running and brewing up loads of water. The other benefit is that I don't have to sleep with cold gas canisters in my sleeping bag.

We weren't the first people up that morning. As I left the tent and started packing up for the day a couple of teams passed us on the walk in to Nameless Cwm, eager to get in routes before the thaw that day. We left the tent at about 0800 and after much plodding through powder snow got to the base of the route at about 0900. I'm sure if the snow conditions were better then we'd have gotten there much quicker. Sadly the snow was a nice thin crust of neve, not enough to support my or Finney's weight and then up to a couple of foot of powder snow beneath. Needless to say progress was slow. We had tried to go for a lighter approach by bringing only the one sack. One of the reasons behind this was that Finney's sack was already falling to bits and defiantly not suitable for climbing in.

The first pitch of East Gully was horrendous. It was by far the hardest pitch I'd led all season and I was bricking it all the way up. I think that I might have not climbed the correct line and instead climbed a groove which relied on too much tenious hooking for my liking. The correct line I think followed a rather thin stream of ice to the left, but I really didn't fancy that. I reached a piece of rock that resembled a belay and brought Finney up to me, who wasn't happy about this pitch either. Still we carried on and got our first and last section of ice in.

The next pitch started with a short 15 metre section of ice which I happily climbed up until I hit the powder snow above. This powder really slowed us down as I was forced o pretty much clean a few inches of the stuff off for each decently placement. The Snow carried on till another belay could be reached. The belays on this route were few and far between and all a little bit hard to organise. It is just part of winter climbing, but finding a good belay for each pitch was a priority for me. I just didn't want to hold Finney if he fell off. 

The rest of the route was simply a joy to climb. I'd now climbed enough that I wasn't bothered about the lack of pure ice on the route and my brain seemed to have engaged into using the frozen turf. I love the noise it makes when you sink a pick deep into a big plug of turf and it just sounds like it's never going to come out. Mixed climbing in this way always seems so much more akin to rock climbing as you're constantly looking for the next placement and trying to keep balance on your crampons so much more. I've always found pure ice much simpler to climb as I make my own holds and move up without really thinking about how I'm moving, instead just letting it happen and enjoying it. 

I did have a few moments as I was leading though. At one point I had everything I was standing on and axes buried into rip out, causing me to fall about 5 ft before my right axe (which had been wildly swung at the wall) caught on a small edge. I hung there for a minute, with about a centimeter of my pick hooked on this small ledge and glanced down at Finney. I can still remember the ashen look on his face as I made some stupid comment to try and relieve the stress of the situation. I moved a little slower and tested placements a lot more after that.

The last pitch was again a little bit exciting. I tried to take the hardest line out of the top of the gully, but I couldn't make the step over to it so I carried on the up the next hardest. At the back of my mind some little mental ticker was flashing up a warning along the lines of “You'll run out of rope soon” and all I could think was that there was no way of me safely reversing the moves I'd just done. I was committed to finishing this short section and hopefully finding a belay above. I did make it onto the snow slope at the top, which was terrible. The type of crumbly snow which seems to delight in shifting away under your feet and giving you a horrible feeling of insecurity. I spotted a good crack about 10ft away and took two steps before the rope came tight. I was now up the creek without a paddle. I yelled to Finney that he'd need to start climbing. From his point of view he had just watching this mass of snow coming down the route. For all the powder that I'd had to clear off on the way up, Finney had to wade through it as he seconded. He wasn't happy about simuli-climbing the last 10ft. 

Needless to say my brain kicked in eventually and I started digging through the snow till I found something. This something was in the form of a sling round a bedrock spike. In the summer when I'm trad climbing I never build a belay off one anchor, it just doesn't seem acceptable but for some reason the rules are different in winter. I yelled I was safe and started taking in. Finney arrived shortly after and took the last pitch, a short pitch of good snow and he brought me up the the final belay where we sat in the sun.

I'd checked my watch and it was now 1200 which meant we'd climbed pretty well. The afternoon was supposed to be 9 degrees and I wanted to be off the snow by this till. We could have moved a little quicker to start down but I don't think we felt we needed too. Instead we sat eating through the small amount of food we brought, re-racked most of the gear (apart from the dropped or left behind items) and discussed the route. Finney told me there was a few moments where he was just not happy and wanted to be elsewhere. I told him I'd had the same but for both of us it was never when were actually climbing, just when we were hanging around belaying. I guess we had time to let our minds just wander.

I could bore you with our long journey back down but there isn't that much I can say about walking down hill through snow. I can tell you that it was a bad choice putting the asymmetric bars on my G14 crampons. They made it awkward to walk in and bad to climb in and top of that by the time I'd finished the left crampon had disconnected itself from my boot and was hanging round my ankle. My first thought was to sell them and I probably will. I can't really justify owning a heavy weight pair of really aggressive crampons when my general use crampons are close to breaking. I should just replace them with some G12's. 

Back at base camp (for want of better phrase) it quickly became apparent that Andy and I were tired, and with an afternoon of sunshine you can just imagine what happened. We got as far as making a single cup of tea (each) before we lay in the sun and fell asleep. When we did move it as late afternoon but there was no rush to get back. I only had work in the morning.

The weekend before I climbed my first ice routes of the season and now this weekend just gone has probably been my last. I really do feel pretty lucky to even have got this small amount of winter climbing in. Although I'm supposed to be coming to the end of my physio (which has been excellent) and my ankles do feel stronger they still hurt a lot. It's like a constant worry at the back of my mind that I'll twist an ankle. Even a small twist seems to put me out of action for a week or so at the moment. I'm pretty happy to have even got out.

Finally, and this feels a little like an obituary, but my trusty tent has finally given up. I've had her for many many years and she's stood up to some truly horrible conditions and never been found wanting. The fabric is seems is now just too weak to even sew back together and a pole broke when I set it up to repair it. It's a sad moment for me and rather stupidly something I'm having a lot of trouble coming to terms with. I've got a lot of memories of that tent and it's taken me to many places. I guess it's last wild camping as our base camp whilst winter climbing was a fitting end.