Pushing things, just a little bit…

So it began again early Sunday morning.  The first rap into Wilyabrup was as the morning light was taking effect, this image was later in the morning allowing a crisper image.  We thought the morning may have felt crisp after it had rained all day long on the Saturday, but it soon warmed up.  Better still our gamble that the rock would be dry despite all the rain paid off, at least on most routes.  Each time we rapped down my trusty old, retired from leading, dynamic rope we were covered in green flecks of material that were detaching from the sheaf due to the belay devices, um maybe it is time to retire this rope:

Why Wilyabrup… well several reasons including it was Howsie’s choice as he had his eye on a line I mentioned during our last visit.  Secondly I had a plan.  Having had it suggested that I was maybe going soft, as a result of some of my recent write-ups, I decided that I needed to toughen up.  There were a number of indicators pointing me to this notion: firstly as I have mentioned before the climbing video called Odyssey, which brought back my old ethics of attempting ground up ascents no matter the difficulty; and secondly, I’ve just read a book call The Black Cliff which is all about the history of Clogwyn dúr Addr:

We started the morning gently a lap on Hope, which I always enjoy, carrying only a single set of wires for gear.  Then Howsie jumped on Thunder Thighs, a route he had not been on before.  As I belayed I had a tickle on my ankle only to find a bull ant checking me out, with two more very close by.  So my attention moved from climber to biter and making sure that as I fed the rope out I didn’t inadvertently come into close contact with an angry bull ant.  Soon I was following Howsie up this very fine route, as I contemplated my next route:

I’d only climbed once on the Clogwyn dúr Addr or Cloggy as is more often than not referred to, and I realised that in my North Wales write up the place didn’t even get a mention!  My climbing partner at the time got spooked by the place, a shame as the place is steep in history and has amazing routes.  The book released in the early 70s was a riveting read, with many epics since the early 1900s through to the late 60s.  Hemp ropes moving onto nylons with some reservations; only slings to start with moving onto pebbles and then pegs.  Thirty meter runouts were not uncommon and often the boldest leaders had no one to follow them up, so they would unrope and finish the route by soloing up.  These guys were serious hard men:

So after absorbing all this bravado from both the screen and pages I decided to take on the route, which just a few weeks back I had top roped with the intention of Wiggins doing a bit of filming.  After the gentle warm up routes I stood below the wall and chatted away happily as I started up.  The tri-cam I suspected looked OK, as long as I didn’t swing to the right on a fall.  Then it was the committing move up to the horizontal rail, the point of no return.  I mentioned that casually and in the next second pulled up to be greeted by wet holds.  Fiddling gear into the horizontal wasn’t easy, I had to pull up each time on tiring arms to check it.  Every time it looked dodgy:

So keeping in mind Joe Brown’s attitude of two pegs (but not more) being acceptable on any one pitch I clipped the rusty looking peg.  No longer quiet so chatty and relaxed I inched through the crux moves to step rightwards before reaching up to gain the upper crack, and then it was game on.  Gear looked fiddly and my arms were tiring, so I didn’t hang about too long looking about.  The peg was getting further and further away and the dodgy gear I placed next to it popped.  Keeping in mind the stories I had recently read I pushed on.  I almost slipped off at the top before managing to flop over the edge feeling both exhausted and exhilarated.  My arms hurt, it’s a short but sharp route and strangely I felt like I wanted to climb it again, but preferably in dry conditions:

Howsie lapped the route up and came away feeling like he couldn’t back off the route that had inspired him to come back to Wilyabrup.  So soon he was starting up Steel Wall, heading for the more sensibly bolted Pascals Route.  Not having been on this line, or Simply Suicide that shares the same bottom two thirds’ish, he had to find his way and I gave nothing away.  This meant hanging on the steep start as he figured out the best way up the first crux section.  Once on the ledge came the second very fingery and the most committing crux section.  Crimping down probably harder than he should have his forearms were now starting to tire:

He managed to get within 6m of the top of the route, only one more bolt to reach and then it would have been the glory run.  He attempted to reach it a heap of times but kept falling off, eventually after three quarters of an hour he had no choice but to give up… he was out of gas.  I reckon the old boys would have been proud of his tenacity even though it didn’t pay off this time, although they may have sneered at the “drilled in bolts”.  The only drilled in bolt (singular) on Cloggy was put in by Pete Crew while on lead in 1963, it was chopped in later years as gear options increased.  Feeling good I led the pitch and Howsie managed to cruise the upper crux sequence, bearing down on a sloper to gain valuable inches to reach a better hold and then heave over the bulge:

It was still relatively early on this trip so we had time for more.  Due to the way the arms were feeling after the last two routes we decided to dial things back.  A pleasant amble up Setting Sun was followed by yet another bolted route of Fishing with Dynamite.  The last route was just easy enough to be achievable but hard enough to provide a final workout, and sap our arms of any strength they had left.  No matter that three of our routes weren’t trad and scary and the other two were easy trad lines, I think that while I attempt to shake this going soft image one scary route on each trip out is enough to get the ball rolling.  After all the other side of my old attitude to climbing was, and always will be, to enjoy being out and climbing no matter what the grade:

Atop the last climb we got chatting to a travelling climber, who was taking his girlfriend out on her second outdoor climbing trip.  Despite his years of climbing experience and obvious ability his belay looked dodgy to us, and then he showed us his rope…  the sheaf was not wearing like my trusty retired dynamic rope but was completed disintegrated in parts.  The core was exposed but he showed us that it was still in good condition to make it OK to keep using for a bit longer.  We were pleased to be leaving before anything untoward happened, and rest assured that trusty dynamic rope retired from leading has been permanently retired: