County Climber Winter 2019

Winter 2018

County Climber

Magazine of the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club CLUB NEWS MEETS REPORTSH ETHICS AND STYLE THE FORBES ARÊTE HOLY ROCKS - METEORA A YEAR IN THE LIFE NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE COUNTY

SPACEWALKING THE SPAGHETTI TOUR MEDIA WATCH THE TOUR DU MONT BLANC THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISPLACED EYEGLASSES PETER AND THE ICICLE

CONTENTS

About the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club The NMC is a meeting point forclimbers,fellwalkersand mountaineers of all abilities.

Ouractivitiescentreonrockclimbing and bouldering in summer, snow and ice climbing in winter and hillwalking in both.

Meets are held regularly throughout the year.

The NMC is not, however, a commercial organization and does not provide instructionalcoursesdirectly.

REGULARS & WINTER 6-7 WEDNESDAY WEEKEND MEETS

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What it says

EL PRESIDENTE

A valedictory piece from the President

EDITORIAL

The usual self-indulgent blah

in the form of a review of the articles in this issue

14 MEETS REPORTS 18 CLUB NEWS

Mainly a report about the recent Members’ slides evening

28 CEILIDH ALERT! DEVELOPMENTS 29 RECENT IN THE COUNTY!

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Steve Blake highlights some recent action in the County

GUIDE TO SPITTAL QUARRY

Copyright The contents of this magazine are copyright and may not be reproduced without permission of the NMC. The views expressed in the magazinearenotnecessarily those of the Editor or the NMC.

Cover Shot: Snow Creek Wall, Icicle Canyon, Leavenworth photo : John Spencer

Background: The New Members’ Meet posse, Great Langdale, May 2017 Photo : Oliver Grady 2

FEATURES

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ETHICS & STYLE

A manifesto for helping conserve County climbing

THE CURSE

Tom Curtis doesn’t like thunder and lighning - he explains why this is so....

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THE SPAGHETTI TOUR

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TOUR DU MONT BLANC

Phil Behan and Clare White follow a circuitous route through the mountains of Monte Rosa Clare White again, this time running the famous route

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THE FORBES ARETE

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THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISPLACED EYEGLASSES

Four accounts, one of them without words, of this iconic Alpine adventure

Sherlock Holmes solves a puzzle on the icy ramparts of Ben Nevis

HOLY ROCKS 113 Join Lewis Preston on the pillars of

Meteora and the stone arched bridges of the Vikos Gorge

117 SPACEWALKING Another 4 accounts, this time of a

classic North American classic rock climb

AND THE ICICLE 131 APETER near miss on an icicle in Glencoe MEDIA WATCH 136 Dave Hume likes reading books

and watching films about climbing.

Thankfully he’s keen to tell us all about them.

148 A DAY YEAR IN THE LIFE

The Costa Blanca, Kalymnos, New Zealand and Sydney, and a march for democracy - Pete Flegg sure gets around!

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The Wave, Bowden Doors, in evening light (photo: Russell Lovett)

NMC Meets

Join the NMC

The NMC Members’ handbook (available to all members) and the NMC website list the dates and locations of all meets.

This magazine lists the meets arranged for the next few months.

You can subscribe online which is easier and faster. More information is available at: thenmc.org.uk

Non-members are always welcome to attend meets.

Payment of fees by GoCardlessDirect Debit is preferred; it’s easy to set up, just click here.

Membership Fees • Full £23 • Prospective £15

Photographs by author of article unless otherwise stated.

You can visit our community : WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/THENMC

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and you can visit our official website : WWW.THENMC.ORG.UK

Guidebooks NORTHUMBERLAND BOULDERING

NO NOBLER COUNTY

The definitive and comprehensive guide to climbing in Northumberland – much more useful than ‘the other one’.

The sandstone of Northumberland offers some of the best bouldering in the Country, often in a remote and beautiful setting.

£12.50 to members (RRP £18.95) £2 P&P

£12.50 to members (RRP £19.95) £2 P&P

Celebrating the sport of rock climbing in Northumberland, from first hand accounts of nail-booted ascents in the 1940s to bouldering in the 1990s.

CONTACT: John Earl 0191 236 5922

CONTACT: John Earl 0191 236 5922

NORTHUMBERLAND CLIMBING

£2 to members (while stocks last CONTACT: Martin Cooper 0191 252 5707

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WEDNESDAY NIGHT MEETS Date Wall Pub Wed 16 Jan The Valley, NE6 1NW The Brinkburn Wed 23 Jan NCC, NE6 2UQ The Brinkburn Sun 30 Jan Sunderland Climbing Wall, SR46TQ Wed 5 Feb NCC The Brinkburn Wed 12 Feb The Valley The Brinkburn Wed 19 Feb NCC

The Brinkburn Sun 24 Feb Newton Aycliffe DL5 6XN Wed 5 Mar The Valley The Brinkburn Wed 12 Mar NCC

The Brinkburn Wed 19 Mar The Valley The Brinkburn Wed 26 Mar NCC

The Brinkburn Sun 31 Mar Sunderland Included in the list is a monthly indoor meet on a Sunday, an idea the Committee was approached to trial. If there is interest it would be possible to go farther afield, to Kendal or Ratho for example. To do that we need feedback folks! As ever with the indoor wall meets it is worth monitoring NMC Chat on Facebook, to check who’s going where. The Brinkburn pub is on Ford Street, first left at the lights below the Valley - never too busy and a purveyor of good ales.

A bit of nostalgia for the older folks: Cramlington Wall, no longer in existence, the venue for Wednesday night Club sessions until Burnside was ‘discovered’.....

Jim Rigg cruises the lower, lower traverse (photo: John Spencer)

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WEEKEND WINTER MEETS Herewith the schedule of winter meets with contact details of meet leaders.

Places are limited, and indeed at the time of publication all meets are full. However people do drop out so it’s definitely worth contacting the leader to get your name on the reserve list.

• 11th-13th January, Karn House, Aviemore, 13 places, £10, Meet leader Jeff Breen (breen30@icloud.com or 01207 507 224 or 07719 407 091) • 1nd-3rd February, Lagangarbh, Glencoe, 14 places, £15, Meet leader Joe Rudin (Rudin.J.d.h@live.co.uk or 07891584747) • 22nd -24th February, Alex MacIntyre, Ballachulish, 10 places, £13, Meet leader Felix Larrieu (felix.larrieu@gmail.com or message) • 14th-17th March, Ling Hut, Torridon, 6 places, £12, Meet leader Joe McCarty (joseph. russell.mccarty@gmail.com or message) • 5th – 8th April, CIC Hut, Ben Nevis, 8 places, £20, Meet leader Ciara Barrett-Smith (ciara.barrettsmith@outlook.com) Note: walking and climbing in the mountains in winter is a more serious undertaking than in summer. If you are intending to join a winter meet, it’s important you don’t just turn up expecting to find someone to climb with, or if you’re inexperienced, to receive instruction. If in doubt, discuss with the meet leader.

Above: Hanging in the hut, CIC Meet, March 2017 Right: Raeburn Hut Meet, February 2018 (party on summit of Binnein Shuas) (photos: John Spencer)

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COMMITTEE

El Presidente Steve Blake

B

y the time you read this the 2019 AGM will have (probably) been held and I will have handed over the Presidency of the Club to Ciara Barrett who will be the Club’s third female President, Doreen Walden and Hilary Porteus having preceded her.

It’s been an interesting three years. Despite believing I have the Wisdom of Solomon, I have never needed to deploy it in the role and I hope Ciara has a similarly straightforward tenure. My parting shots as President were the two amendments to the Club’s constitution and rules: the Code of Conduct and Complaints Procedure, and the disbursement of Club assets in the unlikely event the Club is ever wound up. All exciting stuff and typical of the issues we discuss and debate in Committee, all members of which give up their time to ensure that the Club continues to function, and on our collective behalf I thank them for their efforts.

This winter edition of County Climber is another ‘Tour de Force’ from John and contains a range of articles that exemplify the breadth of experience and activity in the Club; from climbing (historic and recent) in the Cascades, Meteora, the Alps and beyond. Members are out there summer and winter getting ‘stuck in’. There’s a piece by yours truly on ethics and style and why they matter (I am prepared to admit that I do spend too much time gazing at my navel, but it’s an important issue worth reiterating).

In light of some recent activity in the County John asked me to give a perspective on route/crag development. In the interests of journalistic balance I have avoided mentioning

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new routes at Crag Lough and Ratcheugh courtesy of Al Horsfield, his brother and John because they are on basalt, not sandstone - you both need to up your game chaps!

Those members who were (or will be) at the AGM will be aware that the Club remains healthy, both financially and in membership terms. On the guidebook front we have submitted all of the crag scripts and topo diagrams for the forthcoming Wired ‘Northern Rock’ selected guide. When it will emerge remains up in the air, but the Club will soon be depositing its pro-rata share of the publishing costs into a ‘Wired’ escrow account, so hopefully the book will appear in the not-too-distant future.

The next big project is the production of a book that will be released on the Club’s 75th anniversary in 2020. John Spencer has taken on the role of Editor-in-Chief. It will be a challenging and exciting project that celebrates the climbing history and culture in our magnificent County.

So, I hope you enjoy this labour of love and wish you all a safe and productive 2019. Over to you Ciara!

Au Revoir, Steve

Well, whatever his sentiments these days (see his comments in ‘Recent Developments’), the President apparently used to climb on the Whin Sill!

Here he is, sometime in the 1970s, high-stepping on Peel Crag (‘Rock Island Line’?) in EBs, no harness, MOACs dangling from his waist loop, cutting quite a dash.... (photo: John Given)

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Craig Harrison

Andrew Shanks

Adrian Wilson

Vice President

General Secretary

Membership Secretary

Felix Larieu Treasurer

John Spencer

Magazine Editor

Committee Members Ciara Barrett-Smith; Megan Denman-Cleaver; Radoslaw Florczak; Peter Hubbard;CamillaMapstone;JoeMcCarty;ClaireRobertson;JoeRudin;EmmaSmith

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EDITORIAL

W

elcome to this bumper issue of County Climber. As usual a wide range of topics and adventures are covered, accompanied by a shed-load of stunning photos, with a major emphasis on Alpine adventures.

Nonetheless, since this is a local magazine for local people, we also have lots of local stuff.

There’s Club News, which includes photos from the recent Members’ Slides Evening and a meets report. There is also an update on recent developments in our beloved Coonty, including the newly ‘rediscovered’ Spittal Quarry south of Berwick (and, whatever the President thinks, on Whin Sill!).

Staying local, in his essay ‘Ethics and Style. Why they matter and why we should care’, said President (or maybe by the time you read this the ex-President) has laid out a manifesto for climbing ethically in the County, the main purpose being to help conserve our fragile sandstone crags.

Following on, Tom Curtis, who surely hides his light under a bushel, writes about the electrifying (literally) experience of being engulfed in an Alpine storm after climbing the North Face of the Dru. Scary stuff.

Phil Behan and Clare White describe their latest Alpine antics. Clare kicked off her summer by running the Tour du Mont Blanc over 5 days. Later in the season, together, they undertook their version of the spectacular ‘Spaghetti Tour’ in the Monte Rosa massif, so called because it takes a circuitous route between huts at high altitude. Apart from the mountaineering, en route there was haute (literally) cuisine to enjoy, and transient illness and petty crime to endure.

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Meanwhile, the ‘Forbes Arête’ on the Aiguille du Chardonnet, one of the iconic Alpine outings which, according to Rockfax, promises ‘excellent climbing, stunning views and a real high mountain feel’, proved popular with Club members in 2018.

Using a sort-of ‘Canterbury Tales’ approach, we have, from John Vaughan ‘The Old Gadgee’s Tale’, from Tim Blakemore ‘The Guide’s Tale’, from Joe McCarty ‘The Aspirant Alpinist’s Tale’ and, as a photo-essay (a medium not apparently available to Chaucer!), ‘The Survivor- of-an-Epic’s Tale’.

Robin Campbell is an elder statesman of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, currently its Librarian and Archivist. He was one of the group of pioneering Edinburgh-based climbers in the late 1950s/early 1960s, that included the Marshall brothers, Robin Smith and Dougal Haston. Steve Blake refers to a paper that Campbell presented at a National Mountaineering Conference in 1974 (published in Mountain magazine) in his essay on ‘Ethics and Style.’ Robin is something of a wordsmith and during his tenure as Editor of the SMC Journal wrote several Sherlock Holmes stories set in the Scottish Highlands, ‘spoofs’ but in a style true to the spirit of Conan Doyle. He very kindly gave us permission to publish one of them, ‘The Adventure of the Misplaced Eyeglasses’ which I’m sure you will find entertaining. For his unique contribution Robin had the Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture bestowed upon him in 2015 (see: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/ news/2015/05/robin_campbell_-_a_portrait-69752) Meanwhile, Lewis Preston, who at the time of publication is climbing in Kyrgyzstan (and don’t worry, he’s been commissioned to write something about it for the next issue!), describes his autumn trip to the spectacular conglomerate towers of Meteora and the Vikos Gorge in the Pindos Mountains of Greece with ex-NMC regular Bryn Roberts.

Then there are another four related pieces, including one by myself, this time describing a 5-star, 5.9 rock climb at Leavenworth in Washington State, US, namely ‘Outer Space’. It was first climbed by Fred Beckey in 1960 (who else?) and is rated one of the best, if not the best climb of its grade in the NW. It’s one of those routes you just have to do if you’re in the ‘hood. We were, so we did. Read all about it.

You may have heard of ‘Elliott’s Downfall’ (VI, 6) in Glencoe, an icicle at the bottom of No 5 Gully on Aonach Dubh that rarely touches down. It was something of a ‘last great problem’ in its time, the first ascent falling to Dave ‘Cubby’ Cuthbertson in 1979. John Given, in an article originally published in Mountain (No 71), describes an attempt shortly after the FA with Pete Thexton (who tragically died of high altitude cerebral oedema on Broad Peak in 1983) and ex-local lad Phil Swainson that nearly ended in disaster.

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Talking of wordsmiths, Dave Hume provides, in inimitable style, his own take on a selection of mountaineering books and climbing guides that plopped through his letterbox in 2018, as well as some recent climbing films and a reflection on social media in ‘Media Watch’.

And last but by no means least Pete Flegg gives us an account of ‘A day year in the life’, ranging from a protest march in London to climbing on a roadside crag in Sydney via a link-up with former NMC couple Adrian and Martina in New Zealand.

So I hope you enjoy this cornucopia of articles and pictures, which, as Steve Blake says in his valedictory Presidential piece in this issue, reflects the diversity of experience in the Club. Long may it continue, and long may County Climber be a shop-window for all this amazing activity. Many thanks to all the contributors.

As he steps down after three years as President, a brief word about Steve Blake’s understated (by him) contribution to the running of the Club. Although, as he says, there have been no crises to deal with, all very much ‘business as usual’, he has led the Club with an approach characteristic of his calm, collected and controlled climbing style, and has kept things moving forward. He has beavered away ‘behind the scenes’ on access issues, representing the Club at BMC meetings, whilst steadily churning out the bouldering pdfs and working on conserving sensitive sections of crag etc etc. Thankfully he’ll still be making an important contribution to the ‘Wired’ selected guide and in due course to the ‘2020’ commemorative book.

As I finish writing this and we go to publication, the wintry conditions that were with us briefly in the late autumn appear to be making another tentative appearance, so those of us with a proclivity for ‘the white stuff’ may yet have some fun! Having said that, I’m off to El Chorro with Mr Vaughan for a spot of bolt-clipping in the sun in a couple of weeks’ time! But wherever and whatever you will be doing ‘out there’, have fun and stay safe.

John Spencer

The Liberty Bell group of spires, Washington Pass, Cascades

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MEET REPORTS The Bowderstone, October 2018 Five years is a long time, but it doesn’t seem like that. I don’t think many of us thought we would be back for a meet at the Bowderstone Hut, so when the opportunity arose earlier this year, it was hard to resist. The second weekend of October was memorable for many reasons. Here are just a few.

How long does it take to get to Borrowdale? Picking up Lucian and Lewis in rush hour traffic, then Jeff from Shotley Bridge was perhaps not brilliant planning. Going via Stanhope and Alston was madness, particularly as Alston’s main street was shut for resurfacing. A detour via the lanes was expertly negotiated and still the rain came down. Borrowdale already flooded, we drove to The Scafell, full of excitement and anticipation.

The hut has been modernised into a ‘bothy’ by The Calvert Trust. They have done a good job – new toilets and shower room, new bunks, two wood burning stoves and a functional kitchen. I’m sure they thought that the kitchen would now be dry. It wasn’t! White painted walls, no pictures, white doors gave it a clinical impression. Jeff even used the word, “prison”.

Still, we were back and the stories and banter flowed. And still it rained.

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The forecast was for continuous rain on Saturday. Undaunted, Tim tried all of the dark arts to persuade us to partake in a ghyll scramble in Newlands. We of timid disposition resisted, pathetically. Others who had signed up to join us on Saturday, sent text messages with their excuses. Well done to Lewis and Fiona who did get into the water and even had a good time.

Much skulking around Keswick took place instead. It was a proper Bowderstone Meet after all. Finally, by three o’clock, shamed eventually by the ghyll scramblers, three of us climbed to the giddy heights of Binsey, 400m, a pleasant hill on which to get even wetter. By now the valley was seriously flooding, water deep on the road, Derwentwater encroaching as far as Grange. The track down from the hut was a river. Water was flowing through the kitchen wall.

At least the forecast was accurate; Sunday dawned clear, clouds high, dry at last. Tim had been up since six and he was soon trying to convince the rest of us that the rock would be dry. He is an optimist. Joe and Joe, realists, chose the easier angled rock of Pinnacle Ridge and had a good day. The rest of us went up Scafell Pike and were rewarded with a wonderful sunny afternoon with fantastic views in all directions. Even Tim cheered up, after a display of grumpiness in the morning, and found some dryish rock for a spot of bouldering on Broad Crag.

Our verdict? We would go back to the ‘Bowderstone Bothy’ for another meet, perhaps in the summer for some climbing and bouldering. It will never be our hut again but nobody can take away our collective memories and the magic of the location is the same as ever. Last words should go to Peter Jessup and Dennis Lee whose first visit to The Bowderstone pre-dated the NMC taking up its original lease from the National Trust. So enthused by the prospect of the club having the hut as its own, the two teenagers went and camped outside. That was in 1966, they thought. I can’t really give you their final words, however. They said so much!

Martin Cooper 15

Above: A big splash from Fiona Top right: Peter Jessup cutting a dash Bottom right: Joe McCarty on Pinnacle Ridge Below: On the way up Scafell Pike Previous page, top: Tim getting out of his depth; bottom: Fiona and Lewis (photos: Jeff Breen, Tim Catterall and Joe Rudin)

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Wednesday evening meets over the summer were reasonably well attended, the weekend meets less so, despite the fabulous weather. Below are some photos of various meets lifted from NMC Chat

Top left: Lucian Peterca topping out on ‘Marcher Lord’ (VS 5a), Berryhill Top right: ‘Great Wall’ (HVS, 5b), Great Wanney Bottom left: Sam Cartwright on ‘January Jigsaw’ (Severe), Rannoch Wall, Glencoe Bottom right: Preparing for the next day’s climbing, Pembroke (photos: Radek Florczak & Sam Cartwright)

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CLUB NEWS A NEW SOCIAL SECRETARY! Martin Cooper has stepped up to the plate to take on the role of Social Secretary - an office he has held with distinction at least once in the past! - pending ratification at the AGM. He was straight out of the blocks in organising a Members’ Slides evening, and we now have a date in the diary for a (late) winter Ceilidh – see page 28 for details.

MEMBERS’ SLIDES NIGHT, DECEMBER 10TH The venue was the back room of the Cumberland Arms, and the focus climbing overseas.

Around two dozen folk pitched up at the allotted time only to find the organisers struggling with several technological challenges, including compatibility problems between laptop and projector, and the need for a copy of Powerpoint. Russell Lovett and Felix Larieu were thankfully on hand with solutions and the show eventually kicked off, albeit a bit later than intended. Martin suggested a 15 minute limit for each speaker - and all just about managed to stick to the deadline, with a little bit of nudging!.

First up, Felix talked us though his 2018 Alpine season – ‘a bum climbing in the Alps’ (his words) - which included successful ascents of the Forbes Arête on the Aiguille du Chardonnet (a route featured extensively in this issue), the South Face of the Midi, in the Aiguilles Rouges and on Point 3038 Trélaporte, Envers des Aiguilles, as well as the odd epic.

Lewis Preston described his autumn trip to the amazing Meteora in Greece with former NMC stalwart Bryn Roberts for some pebble-pulling on esoteric conglomerate, followed by a visit to the Pindos Mountains, and in particular the Vikos Gorge with its beautiful stone-arched bridges.

Steve Blake recounted adventures dating back to 1975, mostly in North America, including a first ascent on Baffin Island, big wall climbing and cragging in Yosemite and on the Rockfellow Dome in Arizona, yet more conglomerate capers at Riglos, and his sixth ascent of La Demande in the Verdon Gorge.

Paul Quin took us even further back, to 1973 (a time many of the members foregathered were but a twinkle!), describing an expedition to the Kulu Himalaya in India led by the infamous Burgess twins. Several successful ascents were made, topped off with a 17-day drive home in a Ford Transit across Central Asia, a journey that simply could not be undertaken nowadays. They finally pitched up in Chamonix where Paul went on to enjoy his first Alpine season!

John Spencer then recounted two trips in summer 2018. Firstly a walking holiday in the Ecrins with his wife – they were well impressed! Secondly, a three-week jaunt to the North cascades in Washington State with John Vaughan where they did some mid-grade mountaineering around Washington Pass, and made a quick dash to Leavenworth to climb a classic route – read the full story in this issue.

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Finally, against the clock, Russell Lovett showed a selection of (stunning) photographs from various excursions abroad, including the Yosemite Valley and the Julian Alps in Slovenia.

All in all an interesting and entertaining evening. Thanks to all speakers, and of course to Russell and Felix for vanquishing the technology! A selection of photos follows....

Felix Larrieu - ‘A bum climbing in the Alps’

‘The ‘atmospheric’ ridge on our way back to the Index/La Flégère lift after completing ‘Voie des Dalles’ (TD-, 5c) on the Aguille du Pouce, a great trad line in the Aiguilles Rouges range. We ran down the 1h30 approach in 20 min in order to catch the very last lift!’

‘After seeing Hazel Findlay puffing and hanging on ‘Ma Dalton’ (ED+, 7b+) on the South face of the Midi, we decided to give it a go. This quickly turned into an aid climbing pitch, strenuous but an amazing experience being under the roof with the stunning view on the Vallée Blanche.’

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‘On a one-day attempt of the ‘Frendo Spur’, we decided to turn around after losing too much time getting lost and bad weather approching. The 8-hours descent was mainly in the clouds and it quickly rained making the slabs tricky to downclimb. A 23h bivvy-to-bivvy round trip and rest days ahead!’

‘At the top of Pointe 3038 of Trélaporte after climbing ‘Californa Dream’ (ED, 7a), an amazing 450 m line alternating crack and slab pitch very sustained with all pitches between 6b and 7a.

Even crossing the bergschrund proved tricky!’

Steve Blake - Baffin Island, Yosemite, Verdon & Riglos

Approaching the headwall on ‘Killabuck’, Baffin Island, 1975

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Left: Topping out’ after the FA of the ‘Central Pillar of Overlord ‘, a 44 pitch grade VI, Baffin Island, 1975 Below left: Tim in the chimney of ‘La Demande’ (6a), Verdon Below right: Bronwen on initial pitches of ‘Snake Dike’ (5.7), Half Dome, Yosemite Bottom: Bob Smith on ‘Fiesta de los Biceps (7a), Riglos, Spain

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Lewis Preston - Meteora & Vikos gorge

Above: Lewis and the Vikos Gorge Top right: Meteora landscape Right: Pebble-pulling on congolmerate Below: Stone arched bridges in the Vikos Gorge Bottom right: NMC members, past and present, at the Peoples’ Vote March, London

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Paul Quin - the Kulu himalaya

Above left: Ali Ratna Tibba centre, Manikaran Spire 2 on the right Above: Porters crossing the Malana Nala River Left: On the FA of ‘West Ridge’ Manikaran Spire No 2 Bottom left: In the Afghan Desert Below: First Alpine summit the Aiguille du Chardonnet

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John Spencer - ecrins & cascades

Above left: Walking up to the Aiguille Dibona Above right: Yellow foxgloves Left: Refreshing dip Right: Atop the Tête de la Maye; La Meije in the distance Below: Towards Les Bans from Refuge du Temple-Écrins

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Top left: Hiking in the Cascades Top right: Mr Vaughan on ‘Spontaneity Arete’ (5.7) Above: Abbing off ‘Spontaniety Arete’ with the Liberty Bell group of spires in the background Middle left: On the summit of Liberty Bell Spire Left: Chill-out back at the campsite

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Russell Lovett - yosemite & julian alps, slovenia

Above: Yosemite Falls from Sentinel Dome Below: Taft Point, Yosemite, El Capitan in the distance

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Above: Clearing thunderstorm, Triglav North Face, Julian Alps Right: View at dusk from the Pogacnikov Dom hut Below: Looking down into the Trenta Valley from the Pogacnikov Dom

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Ceilidh Alert! A DATE FOR YOUR DIARY We are pleased to announce there will be a ceilidh for NMC members and friends, on Saturday 2nd March (7.30-11pm) with the formidable Northumberland ceilidh band ‘Snook’.

Venue: Heaton Community Centre, Trewhitt Road, Heaton NE6 5DY. Music, dancing and plenty of silliness guaranteed. More information forthcoming in the not-too-distant future about tickets etc. Meanwhile put the date in your diaries!

NMC ceilidh, December 2016

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RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE COUNTY, 2018 A SUMMARY AND SOME REFLECTIONS It’s been as busy as ever on the County’s crags this year. Despite the patches of poor weather a lot of new climbs and problems have been done, and crags discovered and rediscovered. Working backwards and sneaking into early January to keep this as up-todate as possible.

• Most recently Dan Varian mantled onto the Back Bowden slab directly below the streak taken by Julian Line’s ‘Bolder Lands’. This was protected by small cams, but will probably become a boulder problem, hence a bouldering grade of Font 8A. On this occasion he untied and finished up ‘Magic Flute’. He called the problem ‘Grim Creeper’, and wrote this on County Psyche: ‘....it is one logical exit to the horrendous lip of the slab. I used a rope for the crux as there was a massive chance of landing on my left wrist badly and i am a massive flange now when it comes to those types of falls. It’d be much better as a boulder problem but the gears there if anyone wants to use it rather than lugging pads down (bomber small cams) The direct mantle does go but is a fair bit harder.’

Dan Varian on ‘Grim Creeper’, 8A (photo: Dan Varian)

• Tim Blake climbed the right side of the ‘Weird Sisters’ roof, ‘ground up’ as a highball to create ‘The Blood Gutter’ in the Font 7A+ range.

• Dan Varian then tackled the oft looked at line directly through the roof to the left, ‘Big Sister’, again as a highball with a height-dependant grade of between Font 7C and 8B. Dan cleaned this on abseil.

There is a video of the ascent

on the ‘County Psyche’ Facebook page (December 29th).

• Meanwhile Spittal Quarry was ‘rediscovered’ and re-established as a venue, and several new lines were climbed during its redevelopment - details are all in the pdf guide (see page 32). It’s a unique venue in the County and while it’s a tough venue in terms of grades, the climbing is excellent:

o ‘Desert Rendevous’ by Steve Blake takes the rightmost line on the cliff, delicate

and run out with excellent climbing, E4 5c.

o ‘Borderline’ takes the left-most line on the wall and was completed by a visitor

from the North York Moors, Dave Warburton at a stiff E6 6b.

o Dave also climbed into the obvious niche to the right with some blind climbing

above, this is ‘Sassenach’, given E5 6b.

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o Franco Cookson climbed ‘Dolphin Wall’. This E8 is probably a hybrid of some

new climbing and some of ‘Operation Wolf’, a Duncan McCallum route

from the late 80s, It has proven impossible to unpick the two.

• At Howlerhirst a number of activists were vying for a prime line up the imposing barrel-shaped wall right of ‘Guardian Angel’. With a very high crux this was a major challenge and one of the County’s ‘last great problems’. It eventually succumbed to a very determined Alex Moore, who did some minimal pre-inspection and eventually highballed it above a number of pads. It is quite a drop! The Font 7C grade may prove optimistic! The name ‘The Sign of the Devil’ refers to the simultaneous use of two mono pockets, by the left hand’s pinky and index fingers!

• Again at Howlerhirst, Simon Litchfield climbed the short hanging corner right of ‘Harris Tweed’. ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, at E6, is very unfashionably as it uses gear to protect it! He also climbed a problem traverse on the black wall at the left side of the crag at Font 6B/C. • Simon was also responsible for the re-development of Rothbury Quarry. The left hand area was given a thorough cleaning and a number of new lines climbed and some routes from the 90s re-done. Simon and Franco Cookson established three two new E3s, four E5s to add to Karl Telfer’s E6, ‘Pilgrimage’. The venue was long out of favour and is likely to return to the jungle quite rapidly being under a well-established canopy – time will tell if it regains favour as a venue (anorak’s note: the legendary American climber and founder of ‘Patagonia’, Yvon Chouinard climbed at Rothbury Quarry in 1960!)

All of the above are on sandstone crags. I am reliably informed that two new routes have been established on the County’s dolerite. Both by Al Horsfield, one at Crag Lough with our Editor John Spencer (‘The MegaMax Finish’, HVS 5b), the other at Ratcheugh (‘Kat’s Cut’ E1 5b) with his brother Giles. I’m not too excited by these, basalt being the ‘Devil’s Rock’, but am extremely relieved that they aren’t on Cullernose Point!

In addition to the first ascents, there has been a subtle shift towards repeating hard established routes, either ground up, with no pre-inspection, or consciously doing the minimum. This approach is not revolutionary, but does require a lot of confidence and ability. Ground up is probably the most demanding and truest test and reflection of any climber’s ability at any grade, and the experience and memories it can provide are unforgettable. It makes for adventure.

Every ten years or so there is usually a jump in technology, equipment or training that affects climbing; nylon ropes after the war, the advent of nuts in the late 60s,

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cams in the 70s, sticky boots in the 80s, head-pointing in to 90s. Pads have made a huge difference in the last ten years or so. If you embrace all of this stuff then the risk is greatly diminished, but so is the experience.

Earlier this year I was at Back Bowden Doors in the company of Dan Varian, Alex Moore and my son Tim. What I witnessed that afternoon was a great example of balancing risk and skill to maximise the experience. You may have already read my article on ‘Ethics and Style’ in this issue of County Climber and know where my sympathies lie.

The three had a loose game plan which began with Alex and Dan warming up with an on solo of ‘On the Verge’, E4 -5c - that’s no big deal. Alex then soloed ‘Peak Technique’ (E6 6b) having inspected it a couple of weeks earlier. This was (way) above pads. The route has a justified nasty reputation for hurting people and Alex’s ascent was not straightforward, there was a bit of a wobble up high, but he got it.

He was then followed by Dan who did the route ground up. The lack of familiarity was apparent when he found himself wrong-footed and had to down-climb the lower slab back to the lip and start again! All very composed and impressive, with immaculate footwork.

Dan then did ‘The Tube’ (E4 5c) - for the first time - and the group moved to the ‘Merlin Wall’. With pads at the base, ‘County Ethics’ (E7 7a) fell to Alex ‘ground up’. The mats were moved rightwards and Tim then warmed up on the base of ‘The Dark Side’ (Andy Earl’s E9) and on his second go decided to keep going. He quickly topped out a long way above the pads and was soon followed by Alex! Dan then made an onsight, unhurried and untroubled ascent of ‘Merlin’ (E5 6a), without the in-situ thread.

Overall it was quite a tour-de-force and a great example of what is possible at the upper end of the sport. A number of things make this approach possible; the guys are confident, extremely capable climbers, incredibly strong and technically adept at both strenuous and delicate climbing. Pads mitigate but do not remove the danger of a very high fall and there’s a lot of skill in dismounting from height in control.

With some careful thought there are a lot of very difficult climbs in the County suited to a ground up approach. The real skill is in balancing the risk, uncertainty and adventure. And that’s the same for all of us.

Steve Blake

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Top left: Tim Blake on ‘The Dark Side’ (E9) Top right: Alex Moore topping out on ‘The Dark Side’ Above left: Dan Varian on ‘Merlin’ (E5 6a) Above right: Tim on ‘Kremlin’, (E4 6c) (photos: Steve Blake)

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Editor’s note: Despite the frankly disappointing slur by The President about climbing on dolerite, I would like to take this opportunity of stating how much fun it is, especially when in the company of arch-enthusiast Al Horsfield. Herewith some photgraphs in celebration of the mighty quartz dolerite!

Top left: FA ‘MegaMax’ (HVS 5b) at Crag Lough Top right: Dead pigeon for protection Above left: FA ‘Kat’s Cut’ (E1 5b), Racheugh Left: The inimtable Al Horsfield Above: Vegetation - which would you ‘garden’ and which would you leave?

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SPITTAL QUARRY A CLIMBING GUIDE

SITUATION AND CHARACTER The crag is a north facing wall of quarried sandstone, around 50 to 60’ high. It is an imposing feature.

The routes are all vertical and often rely on pockets of varying size. As a result a selection of Tricams will be found useful, if not essential on some of the lines.

It is not a crag for the feint-hearted, the easiest of the climbs being around E4. How hard the boldest lines are, without their defunct bolts, remains to be seen. Undoubtedly they will be hard.

The wall is clean and offers some fantastic face climbing. ‘Opportunity Challenge’ is easily one of the best of its grade in the County. Most of the climbs have had stabiliser applied, which should ensure their durability, and they climb much better, with less scrittle underfoot.

The very bottom of the crag is tidal during very high tides; all the other routes, however, start from grass and are unaffected by tides. The base is as safe for children as any rock pool area. Parking is adjacent to the crag off the track on the left.

The current stakes were placed in July 2018. They are 4’ galvanised scaffold poles. Checking their durability is your responsibility. They have been arranged so that at least two are available to be equalised

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above each route. A layout of the stakes is at the end of the supplement.

Best conditions will be found when there is an offshore wind, a sea breeze seems to make the crag a bit clammy.

All of the usual

sandstone caveats apply to the protection.

HISTORY The crag appears to have been first discovered and climbed on in the mid eighties, by Kev Howett, Calum Henderson and Lee Clegg.

In 1986 this group established a trio of difficult routes, with Howett climbing the excellent ‘Opportunity Challenge’ and ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’, and Lee Clegg leading the ramp line of ‘Spring Tide’. This was protected by a peg in a pocket in the upper third.

The peg has since disintegrated and has not been replaced.

Later Duncan McCallum and Ian Cropley established three more hard lines in the centre of the wall: ‘Taito Corporation’ and ‘The Monster Beach Party’ by McCallum, and ‘Operation Wolf’ by Cropley. A number of poor masonry bolts were placed as protection on these routes which were subsequently removed by Lee Clegg.

These were hard and bold efforts. The exact line of ‘Operation Wolf’ has yet to be determined.

Thereafter the crag was climbed on and used for ‘training’, mainly from top-ropes prior to the development of Yorkshire sport climbing, but the poor belays at the top, and the soft nature of the rock saw it fall from favour and in the early 90s it disappeared into obscurity.

It was then rediscovered in 2005 by Cas Ladha who briefly explored the wall, noting its potential but didn’t take it any further.

However, in early 2018 he brought it to the attention of Steve Blake. Together they reclimbed the obvious free climbs, Ladha added an alternative finish to ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’, and Blake established ‘Desert Rendezvous’ up the wall to its right. Lhada later repeated ‘Opportunity Challenge’.

Above: Cas Ladha on ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’ on the left, ‘Opportunity Challenge’; on the right (photos: Mark Savage)

At the time of publication the three central routes and the wall left of the ramp line are open projects. The former need to be reclimbed without the original bolts. In 2018 Franco Cookson established the difficult ‘Dolphin Wall’, which may share some of ‘Operation Wolf’. On the same visit Dave Warburton climbed into the niche left of ‘Spring Tide‘ - ’Sassenach’ - and further left again to establish ‘Borderline’.

The remnants of a pointless bolt ladder are evident at the base of ‘Opportunity Challenge’, these are fine examples of galvanic corrosion and will likely fall off in the next couple of years.

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Above left: Iain Small on ‘Sassenach’ (E5 6b) Above right: Mathew Thompson on ‘Desert Rendezvous’ (E3/4 5c) (photos: Matthew Thompson taken off ‘County Psyche’) Below: Spittal Quarry in all its glory (photo: Steve Blake)

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Above left: Kev Howett on FA of ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’ Above right: Kev on FA of ‘Opportunity Challenge’ (photos: Howett collection) Left: Access and parking Below: Belay stakes as of August 2018

Note: most of the material on Spittal in this section is contained in the pdf guide put together by Steve Blake and available on FB ‘County Psyche’.

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Ethics and Style

Why They Matter and Why We Should Care Steve Blake

T

he issues of ethics and style in mountaineering and rock climbing have been discussed since the activities first developed. Concepts of ‘fairness’ in the game and a reliance on skill over technology have long been both lauded and a source of dispute. The relative fragility of Northumberland’s sandstone crags makes the issues of ethics and style particularly important. Compared with the rest of the UK, Northumberland remains a bastion of traditional climbing. How did this happen and why should we protect it? I hope to explain both.

Mountaineers and rock climbers have long been prone to gaze at their navels and think deeply about their activities, this inevitably leads to discussion and debate about how we do what we do, as well as why we do what we do.

Much of this debate was crystallised in 1911 when Paul Pruess, a leading developer in the Eastern Alps, wrote an essay about the use of artificial aids on Alpine routes. His position was that you should be able to reverse what you climb; he essentially soloed his routes and in the majority of cases down-climbed them.

Before his death he climbed 1200 routes, 300 of which were solo and 150 first ascents.

Paul Preuss

This was the start of a debate on ethics and style (known as the ‘Maurhakenstriet’ – ‘piton dispute’) that posited that the use of pitons for protection or aid and abseiling were only acceptable in extreme circumstances to avoid a catastrophe. He accepted that he was something of a lone voice in these views as by then pegs and various rope techniques were in common use. Whilst an exemplar in the practice of minimalist climbing, he wasn’t a zealot and did place a number of pitons.

Amongst all of Preuss’s climbs the East Face of the Campanile de Basso stands out as a fine example of the man’s ability. Climbed on sight, solo and ropeless. In its modern state, this 300m route is still considered a grade V.

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In the UK a classic manifestation of these issues took place in 1936 when some visiting German climbers, Teufel and Sedlmayer, placed two pegs to force a line on Tryfan, the infamous ‘Munich Climb’ (nowadays graded HVS 5a). British indignation about the importing of ‘steeplejack’ techniques was such, and probably national pride pricked, that the then President of the Alpine Club, Lord Strutt, was made to utter; ‘Any man who would place a peg on British rock would shoot a fox’!

While the metaphor isn’t as clear now as it was then, the point he was making, in a rather stuffy way, was that it just wasn’t fair! It also ignored the reality that continental climbers, particularly those in the Eastern Alps, were climbing much more difficult routes Campanile de Basso than their British counterparts. That said, the British position from early days through to the Brown and Whillans era was sympathetic to the adventurous approach. Indeed Brown had a self -imposed limit of no more than two pegs per pitch, recognising that some climbs were best left for following generations.

Such debates have continued ever since. These early discussions focussed, like Preuss’s, on not devaluing the challenge and adventure offered, by the climb; the development of the human spirit and experience, giving the mountain or route a chance to win the game, maintaining the uncertainty and relying on the basic skill of the climber. At this stage there was little debate about the impact we were having on the mountains and rocks we play in and on. These underlying issues of risk and uncertainty balanced against skill, technique and ability remain central to how we conduct and consider our activities and are the foundation of the ‘ethics’ that underpin our activity. The debate continued.

In 1971 Reinhold Messner wrote a seminal article that was published in Mountain magazine, ‘The Murder of The Impossible’. This lamented the overuse, in particular, of bolts in climbing and the concomitant reduction of risk, skill and commitment that advances in equipment could bring. Fundamentally, it continued the argument that the mountains and rocks should be a place of adventure.

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In more recent years our impact on the mountains and crags has become increasingly obvious. We see and live with the consequences of our activities: erosion, overcrowding, litter and worse, and these issues have become part of the debate.

How does this discussion, lasting over a century, impact on our corner of the country? All of these debates influenced our predecessors. The ‘ethical’ view that adventure is an imperative has always has always had a powerful influence here. This in turn has had a big impact on the ‘styles’ of climbing that evolved and were favoured. Herein lies the origin of the boldness that is typical on many of Northumberland’s climbs.

With each generation standing on the shoulders of its predecessors, standards rose and so did the level of skill and boldness required to tackle the climbs.

While some aid routes were established at the Wanneys and Crag Lough, pegs and bolts never became commonplace on our sandstone crags (although there Old-school highballing - Bob Smith takes to the air off ‘Poiseidon Adventure’ (E4 6a), are probably be more old aid bolts Bowden Doors, mid-70s around than you realise, dating (photo: Steve Blake collection) back to the fifties - these are aberrations). Pre-practising routes (top-roping) was frowned upon, and in the mid 70s and 80s it became increasingly apparent that on our small crags, keeping the adventure element high meant upping the apparent risk, and increasingly testing your skills and head.

In Northumberland this approach reached its apogee in the late 70s and 80s when some very hard routes on sandstone were done ground-up, with, on occasion, some substantial ground falls routinely taken. While many were cleaned on abseil, although some weren’t, very few were top-roped prior to their first ascent.

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In 1974 Robin Campbell, the well-known Scottish climber, presented a paper at the National Mountaineering Conference (published in Mountain #35) which incorporated the environmental issues in a set of climbing ethics and which I thought did a great job of encapsulating all that had gone before, as well as including the environment.

These tenets (referred to by Campbell as a minimal set of ‘Categorical imperatives for ethical mountaineering’) were: • We climb the mountains (and rocks) • Test your skill • Test your nerve • Love the mountains (and rocks) I would argue that in Northumberland’s case it is appropriate, if not essential, that we move the last, ‘Love the mountains and rocks’, to the top of the list.

If we do indeed love the rocks then it is incumbent on us to look after them. This is particularly Illustration accompanying Campbell’s essay from relevant on our fragile sandstone Mountain #35 (1974) crags, where some styles of climbing accelerate erosion. Top-roping, shunting and running endless bouldering laps or attempts can seriously damage vulnerable climbs. This doesn’t apply to all routes and problems, and indeed there are both routes and problems that are incredibly durable, but bizarrely the most vulnerable bits of rock and crags seem to attract far too much attention.

A small cadre of individuals do make a concerted effort to maintain the rock. This ‘stabilisation’ does work and in many instances has stopped the erosion in its tracks. But it remains secondary to being kind to the rock in the first place.

It is a happy coincidence that the County’s ‘ethics’, in encouraging an adventurous approach have also protected the rock. While it may not seem so when you walk past ‘Vienna’ or ‘Child’s Play’ at Bowden, things could be a lot worse!

Hold erosion at Bowden The infamous ‘Vienna’

(photo: Steve Blake collection)

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In the last decade the increasing use of pads and development of indoor training facilities has seen some very hard routes being tackled as high/ skyballs. This is a bold approach well suited to the County, and tests the skill and nerve of those involved - and the nerve of those watching!

Dan Varian, ‘Peak Technique’ (E6 6b), Back Bowden Dropping onto On-sight flash a stack of pads, (photo: Steve Blake collection) in some instances from above 10 metres, is not without significant risk. Moreover, some very hard climbing has been done ‘ground-up’ with no pre-inspection, demonstrating just what is possible for those with the right skill and judgement. Given the size of the shoulders being stood on, this is no mean achievement.

It would be naïve to think that pre-inspecting or top-roping very difficult climbs in the County doesn’t take place. It does, but it is typically quite limited in its scope and is the exception rather than the rule. What does all of this mean for the majority tackling more modest climbs? In practise, if set up correctly, occasional top-roping isn’t a cardinal sin, but please be aware of the potential for damage. This is a real world practical application of the philosophy. Regardless, I’m certain that you develop much more ‘climbing judgement’, ‘real world’ skill and accumulate meaningful experience, leading a climb, ground-up, rather than top-roping a line that’s several grades harder.

Regarding route cleaning, it is acceptable to do this on the harder routes in the County as they get done relatively rarely and accumulate lichen and scrittle. However, cleaning may be necessary even on some of the easier, less frequented routes on Whin Sill. (Note that quartz dolerite is very hard and not easily damaged.) Nonetheless, given the potentially fragile environment, climbers should try to keep ‘gardening’ to the minimum required to climb the route – it’s not always necessary to rip out

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Alex Moore off ‘The Dark Side’ (E9 7b), Back Bowden, during an onsight attempt. Success came on the third attempt (photo: Steve Blake collection)

Tim Blake on ‘County Ethics’ (E7 7a) Back Bowden - ground-up (photo: Mark Savage)

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every piece of vegetation!

There’s a rich history of boldness in Northumberland that has seen generations of climbers brought up on our tiny crags adventuring successfully all over the world.

I’d argue that the experience and judgement to be gained here is a substantial reward for the effort and risks. This history and background isn’t apparent to many climbers, and the climbing wall sausage machine can churn out hundreds of technically capable climbers who know little about ethics, history or style, what is right and wrong. Who would have thought anyone could consider Kyloe Out of the Woods a Dry Tooling venue? But some folks did…

Our established ethics have served the County and its climbers well and they should be cherished. To summarise: Whenever we visit one of our local sandstone crags we have an impact. It is all of our responsibility to demonstrate and promote best practice in Northumberland.

1.

Clean your shoes before you climb. Sand and mud on the soles of shoes accelerate wear and polishes the holds.

2. Do not climb on damp or wet sandstone. Sandstone when wet is substantially weaker, liable to breaking and erodes much more quickly.

3. Where possible clean off any chalk and tick marks. Brush problems gently.

Whacking with a rag works well to remove chalk or tick marks and can be gentler than brushing.

4. Bouldering is a very intense activity that can focus erosion on a small number of rocks. Avoid running laps on problems. If you cannot do a problem in good style and quickly, then leave it until you are stronger.

5.

Avoid top/bottom-roping and shunting on sandstone crags. They are practices that focus erosion on the crux of climbs. If you must top-rope, avoid running laps on the same climb. Use a static rope for the anchor with an edge protector and ensure it is set so the active rope is not running over the edge.

6.

Avoid placing protection that will damage the rock. Pegs and bolts have no place in our crags. Sandstone flakes are delicate and easily broken by cams. The end result can be broken rock not to mention broken bones.

7.

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It is a rare occurrence, but graffiti does still appear from time to time, this

and chipping new, or enlarging existing holds should be challenged if seen.

8.

Although stating the obvious, dry-tooling on sandstone is potentially disastrous and is a complete No-No. 9.

If it is necessary to belay to a tree, tie the belay rope round the tree as low as possible to minimise leverage 10. Do not camp, bivouac, light fires, barbecues or stoves near or at the Crags in Northumberland.

11. If you have a dog/s at the crag ensure it is under control. And note that not everyone loves a dog.

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Dry tooling damage at Kyloe Out (photos: Mark Dunn)

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The Curse Tom Curtis

A

flash outside lifts my eyes from the flicker of the screen to the dull dark Newcastle skies and the fat drops of rain on the office windowpane. I won’t cross the Town Moor tonight. Just the thought of being exposed on that familiar urban pasture in this weather creates a pit in my stomach. So I cycle home down the back streets of Gosforth. Hoping the tall houses and trees will be more attractive to the malevolent electrostatics than my hunched figure.

Still, I flinch like a cowed dog at the thousand and 1, thousand and 2, thousand and 3 mile-off storm. I don’t swear. My eyes are on the road but my mind…

My mind is on the ledges near the top of the granite alpine peak. Bedding down for the night with a wary, weary satisfaction from of an ascent of Dermot’s sixth north face. Old hands of tender years, we are sanguine about the clouds billowing up from the Chamonix valley. This is not our first bivouac- not even our first storm - and we slip Goretex covers over our sleeping bags. We joke and play with words, describing our precaution as prophylaxis. Happy that tonight we will lie down head-to-head on the long thin ledge, drink tea from melted snow and slumber as the clouds gradually obliterate the stars.

There was no warning. Perhaps I had a quizzical thought for the moment when

Image by Dermot Somers

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the air buzzed in front of my nose and the ether ionised, before the flash-bang and the kick in the face.

Shock and fear and panic all come at once. We sit up and make a futile attempt to save ourselves by flinging the metal rack and axes down the ledge. But there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. I lie face down.

There is a big shock, a really big shock. It instantly and involuntarily invokes a childhood memory. A violent and dangerous jolt of mains electricity from the bare wires of an old clock at home. But this is worse.

And the storm begins to play with us. Little shocks are interspersed with those inflicting severe pain. This is not simply fear. I am used to fear. This is fear x helplessness x anticipation.

I have no agency, no tips. no tricks, just cowering impotent dread of the blow I know will come. The shocks are hard, so hard; the next one must surely kill me.

I count to cope. Not all the electrocutions, that would be too many, just the big ones. Four.. five‌ six‌.was that eight? Is this what it is like to be tortured? To bear pain upon pain, not knowing what you can endure or what you can survive, when it will stop. But there is no torturer. There is no one to blame or to appease.

This is just physics.

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But there is always some one to blame. Some bastard had put a metal Madonna on the top of the mountain: a sanctimonious sacred lightning conductor. In a flash of anger I know who, or rather what, to blame. I curse loudly, and I remember those words with a clarity borne of shame.

“When this fucking storm is over I am going to climb to the top of this FUCKING mountain and I am going to find that FUCKING Madonna and throw it down the FUCKING hill!!”

Dermot responds in soft, composed Irish tones.

“Tom, I don’t think this a good time to be cursing Madonnas!”

I stop. And in that instance I find comfort. I may have been too proud to pray. But simply not swearing was an admission that more than physics could be at play. The presence of forces that I would not explicitly admit to believing in, but in my terror I would not now dismiss.

Were we struck again? I don’t remember, but I think we were. But I was not quite so frightened - I had brought something on to my side. And eventually the storm slunk away to other mountaintops and other victims, and we slept.

The morning brought sunshine, tea and a calm methodological descent, our normal irreligious feelings seemingly restored.

I was left with no visible scar; just a fear of lightning, a present, lingering fear, and a silent respect for those that pray.

Tom as St Patrick

(photo: Dermot Somers)

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Footnote The author wonders whether Dermot Somers was inspired by the following poem to create the image of him as St Patrick: “At Tara today in this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power, And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness, And fire with all the strength it hath, And lightning with its rapid wrath, And the winds with their swiftness along their path, And the sea with its deepness, And the rocks with their steepness, And the earth with its starkness All these I place,

By God’s almighty help and grace, Between myself and the powers of darkness.”

“The Rune of St. Patrick”, derived from “The Lorica”, both traditionally attributed to St. Patrick Translation by James Clarence Mangan, published in Lyrica Celtica (1896); also in Celtic Christianity : Ecology and Holiness (1987) by Christopher Bamford and William Parker Marsh, p54

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As many will know, Tom Curtis is Professor of Environmental Engineering at Newcastle University (with a focus on ‘the science and technologies required for the treatment of water and wastes’) or, as he calls himself, ‘Professor of Poo’, and in recognition of that status, here is a photograph of a toilet in the Pamirs of Tajikstan taken by local photgrapher Clare Rowntree.

‘I’ve experienced a lot of rather bizarre toilets on my travels and this one in the Pamirs of Tajikistan ranks with the best of them. Built from old Russian car parts it’s fully recycled, colourful and offers a modicum of privacy.

You just have to watch out for the rusty bits.’

Clare Rowntree

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The Spaghetti Tour Phil Behan

S

tanding with the great and the good of the European ski racing circuit Clare and I were waiting for the Glacier Paradise lift up to the Klein Matterhorn. It wasn’t the middle of winter though: this was August in Switzerland. This probably wasn’t the oddest thing about Zermatt. That award goes to the town itself; it’s a cross between a normal Swiss town and Disneyland, complete with droves of sight-seeing tourists from all over the world, electric cars and inflated prices. The Klein Matterhorn happens to be one of the few places with yearround skiing in Europe and also the dropping-off point for the Breithorn and the real beginning of our holiday.

We quickly found out that getting on the first lift is as much of a fight as the Midi lift: only for 100CHF return! Many skiers in Lycra, with multiple sets of skis and huge bags, took the first couple, but eventually we found our way up to the top of the Klein Matterhorn. After kitting up and with a coffee and croissant in hand we were fit to set off on our adventure: a traverse of the Monte Rosa aka ‘The Spaghetti Tour.’

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Photo: The Breithorn Traverse

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Day 1 - Breithorn half traverse Setting off from the Klein Matterhorn is as simple as walking through a gate; you’re simple deposited out onto the relatively flat pistes. A quick trot over the glacier then lands you onto the easy western slopes of the Breithorn. The only difficulty making your way up to the summit from this side is the altitude; the snow angle is pretty easy and there are few crevasses to fall in (although people manage every year).

It’s not to be taken lightly though; ranking 39th among Europe’s tallest, this is still an undertaking and a popular acclimatisation route for Mont Blanc. The views on a good day like ours are spectacular! Especially along the Monte Rosa towards Lyskhamm and along the Gorner Glacier.

A traverse of the ridge would normally go E-to-W, descending the slopes we had slogged up. However as our intention was to carry on away from the lifts towards our hut for the night we took on a partial traverse in the opposite direction, W-to-E. At a solid AD the ridge is a fun mix of narrow snowy arêtes and rocky buttresses. There is definitely a requirement for a good level of experience on this ground - as with many routes, the rock is not the difficulty, but more the time to get the route done.

A rocky part of the traverse

Breithorn summit

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Moving together and relatively unprotected climbing and scrambling are a big part of the day; as is significant, excellent exposure. It all adds up to a fine traverse and the rewarding feeling that comes with using a multitude of skills in a relatively short day. It would be a shame to go up the Breithorn on a day trip without adding in a trot over the rest of the ridge, because it much changes the character of the day.

Dropping off the icy southern slopes and back down to the glacier below gives the first section of steep ground on the white stuff. You’d not be criticised for breaking out the screws to cross what was a reasonable bergschrund under our condi-

tions.

Getting from the descent down to our first hut did not prove simple. The unsettled weather that was to plague our trip set in for the early afternoon and so much of the next 5km was spent negotiating steep sections of glacier, seracs and cliffs in near-whiteout conditions. By the end of this we’d seen a guy fall in a crevasse, heard very close serac collapses and had enough of iffy snow conditions that Clare actually had a tear in her eye when the hut loomed up out of the murk in front of us.

The Rifugio Guide d’Ayas is a lovely little hut and was absolutely heaving when we arrived - normally this would be a bad sign, but the atmosphere was, in fact, great and we had a lovely time over dinner after a nap. The night was punctuated by ongoing thunderstorms and serac collapses big enough to shudder the building; this rocked me off to sleep, but very much had the opposite effect for Clare!

Day 2 - Pollux & Castor After a night of some of the best sleep (for some of us!) we awoke to the early start of the guides and their clients. The Spaghetti Tour is very popular with guided European parties; sadly their briefings don’t include etiquette and how to avoid destroying the sleep of others. In these busy huts don’t expect much of a slumber after 3-4am. Thankfully we’d struck up a pretty good relationship with the guardian the night before and he’d told us to sleep in and avoid the crowds later in the day, so we dozed a little longer. The theme continued at breakfast with an easygoing chat with the guardian that lasted well over an hour longer - oops! This may have made us late, but it also meant he comped our extras. And so started another day on a late start with a forecast that necessitated a reasonable finish with evening storms eek!

Trudging back up the glacier above the hut in the morning light revealed a lot of the views we’d missed the night before and the precarious perch that our hut for the night occupied. It turns out that the climb up the glacier at well over 3000m above sea level is much harder than in descent, but we solidly made time up to the base of Pollux and its SW ridge.

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Day 2 Above left: Leaving the hut on Day 2 Above: Summit ridge Left: Summit views, Castor Below: The Ayas Hut

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Pollux is one of those tops on which you have to enjoy the style of climbing on or it will just seem a chore. Rock hoping amongst choss is a big part of the climb, as is picking a quick line up the ridge. Worryingly, we seemed better at this than the guide trailing us with a client. The chains at the top help make short work of the main section of climbing and, in contrast to the day before, little is needed beyond a couple of quick draws. Don’t arrive at these feeling too knackered, though, as you’re arms won’t thank you. This is a route of contrasts; the 4092m summit of Pollux is reached along a snowy arête from the chains onwards, which was lead admirably by Clare. The summit gives good views of the day before and the lump that lies in the way from here: Castor.

After retreating down the same line and passing groups still heading up (and we thought we were late?!) we retrieved our bags from their stash. We also bumped into our first group of Brits doing a two day acclimatisation route back to the Klein Matterhorn: an undertaking that would be very rewarding if you were more stretched for time. This is also one of the few opportunities for retreat back to Zermatt. We headed across the col (Zwillingsjoch) to Castor’s broad west face; unrelenting and steep, this is a trudge that requires a bit of stubbornness to keep yourself in the game. The top rewarded these efforts as the climb over the bergschrund and onto the summit ridge was a fun challenge, with iffy snow and a pleasantly exposed feel on Pollux summit steep snow and ice. The same goes for the summit and its traversing ridge; just wide enough for a pair of feet, it felt quite “out there” as the cloud closed in for the second afternoon in a row.

And so started another trot down from a four-thousander in the cloud over several kilometres, this time urged on by the drone of the next hut’s generators and the breathtaking views that occasionally appeared from the gloom ahead. Once again our arrival at a hut was greeted by a storm breaking as we removed our kit and congratulated ourselves on a fun day. Another theme started to develop; we’d had better than average food so far and there seemed to be a gradually increasing quality between huts.

This night’s meal included braised beef and chocolate mousse after a pasta starter really rather good!

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Day 3 - Lyskamm or down?

Our third day was what had brought my attention to the area: a planned traverse of Lyskamm, a highly committing 4km route on a very narrow ridge. Two things changed this and prompted the need to examine Plan B: higher than expected winds, with worse storms forecast for 2pm onwards, and Clare being unwell. Breakfast was sombre it was clear Clare wasn’t in the right shape to race the weather over a route well known for its objective hazards and reasonable accident rate. It has even attracted the name “Menschenfresser” (man-eater) with good reason. Staying up high the alternative was a traverse along the Lys glacier around to the Gnifetti Hut, our next bed for the night. Plan C was to drop to the valley and approach our next hut by cable car and easy footpaths; this seemed an overreaction.

As dawn started to break we stepped out onto a glacier for the third morning in a row. Il naso del Lyskamm is a top that reaches a respectable 4274m below the main eastern summit of Lyskamm (4527m). The approach took us over the Lys Glacier, an easy walk with beautiful views out over the Aosta Valley, as the sun started to appear over the massif. This route is the one used by the guides to miss the Lyskamm traverse too. They tend not to do these summits on a Spaghetti Tour and we had thought it would be a pretty pedestrian day. The fun scrambling and 50-60’ ice up on the upper slopes were therefore a very pleasant surprise. The narrow summit and final ridge are hidden gems Clare on the Lys Glacier worth seeing.

The descent down to the glaciers below and the Gnifetti Hut proved less exciting, thanks in part to steep screes above cliffs and poor snow conditions leaving the top. Once down we found ourselves approaching the Biv. Giordano and a veritable playground for guides and their parties; this area is surrounded by easily gained four thousanders and is heavily used by French and German speaking groups. The huge numbers of crevasses in the area and large number of inexperienced climbers made for a few eyebrow-raising moments as we ambled down to our next bed

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for the night ...just as the next storm came in to give yet another layer of fresh snow for the following morning.

After a huge lunch and a nap we chose to sit around drinking litres of fruit tea for the afternoon, something we’d become accustomed to.

The afternoons in these huts are pretty chilled and give a lot of time for reading and people watching. Dinner that night confirmed our prejudices as we ate really rather nice carbonara and steak. The food ante was definitely getting upped! The conversation at our table centred around our being the only Brits and how we were mad for not having a guide. There really were quite few self-supported groups around and so we stuck out for this fact. This part of On the top looking back to Castor the Monte Rosa is used quite widely for courses and by guides with complete beginners. Another night’s sleep was accompanied by winds and snow flurries sure to hide a couple of the less obvious crevasses we’d navigated that day.

Day 4 - Europe’s highest hut The next day was an early start and also the best breakfast of the trip. Despite the food, Gnifetti Hut didn’t come close to being our favourite; it lacked the feel of the Ayas, but also my helmet and expensive head torch had vanished from my box (and because of how I’d packed it not by mistake!). Little interest in helping from the hut or guides meant relying on a spare torch and a tweak of the plans: we decided to miss out the Pyramid Vincent which View from the loo in a break we’d intended doing by a rock route and instead bypass it in the weather to continue along the rest of our route for the day over the classic ‘Three Peaks Route.’

After getting out into the dark and onto the snow it didn’t take long to get over a rather foul mood - we even offered a guy to join our rope as he walked up solo to meet his friends who had camped up at the 4000m mark. The route we followed took us past the Biv. Giordano as the dawn broke and gave some more awesome views to ease the mood further. By the time we were at the col below Corno Nero

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Day 4 Top left: Ludwigshรถhe (left), Corno Nero (middle), Lyskamm (right) Top right: Parrotspitze summit Middle left: Descending from the Parrotspitze Above: The Margherita Hut Left: View from the Margherita Hut (4554m)

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we were back to squeaking about the pretty views and taking photos every five steps - we were both back to being in good spirits and firing on all cylinders. This was a point highlighted by us overtaking three or four groups on this small, but relatively technical top. At 4321m it requires some skill on steep snow and a wee scramble to reach the summit. The guides with their clients struggle to push past one and other over this ground and so we opted for a hybrid lower-off / abseil directly from the summit that was scarily slick - who were these climbing gods?

Buoyed on by our mountaineering prowess we set off for the similarly modest exertion of tackling Ludwigshöhe, a small, extremely narrow top and number two of the Three Peaks. I say modest, but at 4342m it proved to be an undertaking worthy of the stunning vistas that welcome those who top out. Traversing down the steep slopes below we set off for our next target: Parrotspitze. At 4434m this top is formed by a steep-sided knife-edge arête approximately one kilometre long. As the cloud set in this became somewhat menacing and a real test of our heads for height, especially with Europe’s highest face below us! A highlight was passing a guide with his pole mounted horizontally on his bag and fully extended as he explained that he was on a solo reccy of the hills for a client. This top was one of the less well trodden of the trip and so coming off the back side on the fresh snow definitely added to the awesome exposure - a brilliant outing.

Unlike our previous days our hut was not below us. In fact this night’s hut lay atop Europe’s sixth highest mountain: Signalkuppe. There’s no nice way to put this; slogging up to 4554m in direct sun on a deteriorating glacier isn’t fun. Despite the dorky sun hat being donned it was impossible not to feel the heat.

Given the effort of the trudge and the heat the top needed to be special - and it was! Breathless more than any other time on the trip we reached the summit, capped by the Margherita Hut. The Margherita Hut had to be our favourite of the trip for a combination of the great food, coffee, music and most of all the staff who were amongst the most welcoming; after dinner they sat with us and offered us their odd local liquor dangerous stuff. We sat with a group of very funny French lads and an English guy out with his guide, the former turned out not only to have boundless enthusiasm for Northumberland sandstone, but was also from Whitley Bay!

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Day 5 - back to Mountain Disney That night the biggest storm of the trip set in and was only noticed when Clare found a snowdrift in the toilets! Half cut at four and a half thousand metres, this didn’t really sink in until the morning when we looked out of our bedroom window to see a full-on white-out; back to bed then! Eating what was only our second breakfast in the light since landing five days earlier was almost a luxury, but meant that, like previous days, the weather had altered our plans and we wouldn’t be ticking off more tops. Instead we crept out into the clouds and a heavily rimed-up world to start the slow process of navigating down the Grenz Glacier to the Monte Rosa Hut. This turned out to be pretty technical glacial terrain with rabbit warrens of crevasses, big enough to hide a family home and improbable-looking bridges; in other words us weirdos loved it! Clare especially showed a knack for finding the way on some of the worse ‘dry’ areas even with no track.

Guidebooks make the Monte Rosa Hut sound like the end of your journey. It’s anything but! It is however the first time we’d seen a flushing loo in five days and sold awesome coffee. The deck proved an irresistible stopping point. The hut itself is worth a mention - it is a new building that resembles a spaceship perched on the hillside looking out to the Matterhorn.

Our first marked path of the trip was meant to get us quickly back to Zermatt. Nature had other plans though; this was not the end of our Top: Waking up to winter at 4500m! adventure. The path takes a small Bottom: Negotiating the crevasses detour onto a dry section of the stunning Gorner Glacier, but this sadly had also collapsed into a giant mess of serac and crevasse. An alternative was found after a significant amount of trial and error through the crevasses and moraine though and soon we were hunting for the ladders up to the Gornergrat and a four kilometre walk back to the train into Zermatt (Mountain Disney).

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Day 5 Top left: Finding a path #1 Top right: The Monte Rosa Hut Left: The Matterhorn Bottom left: The Matterhorn from Zermatt Below: Finding a path #2

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Logistics It’s tempting to think that huts are an unnecessary expense when there are bivouacs past on the route, but carrying a light rack for the first day and then not using it again made it very clear in our minds: any weight that isn’t one hundred percent necessary really is too much. The huts add distances that a bivouac or tent would cut, but the weight saving of kit and food is invaluable over a distance like this and at these altitudes. The huts are busy, though, and pre-booking by weeks if not months seems sensible; this also lets you spread the cost with a deposit. Beware of your kit! These are not quiet huts with the usual climbing crowd, there are large numbers of day-trippers visiting them and inexperienced guided parties, this means that you need to take a bit more care than in others. The food and mountains made up for the negatives though!

Acclimatisation is a must. These may be mountains people use to acclimatise, but getting much done will require you to already have your body up for the task: Clare ran the Tour du Mont Blanc and I spent two weeks fancying around the Alps with Joe after hiking a week in Arizona. It made a difference!

Getting to Zermatt should be easy: there are multiple train options from the North and West as well as apparent road access. Looking into public transport options turned out to be surprisingly expensive as did flying into Geneva in high season.

Instead it turned out more frugal to fly to Basel and drive (beware parking in Täsch remains expensive!). More frugal, but slightly harder is to approach from the south and Aosta - we chose the north as we’d not been to Zermatt and love Switzerland, but both have their merits.

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Tour du Mont Blanc Clare White

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’m reluctant to call myself a runner, I’m more “part runner, part walker and observer of views”…. but once I’d had the idea of a trail-running trip in Chamonix it wouldn’t budge.

Without any alpine trip planned it would give me my mountain fix this summer.

It was Phil that suggested Tour du Mont Blanc - it had crossed my mind as a future idea but with a growing to-do list in Chamonix valley I didn’t want to spend the recommended 10+ days backpacking the route. Having read far too many blogs about runners reccying UTMB in four days an overly ambitious idea of a ‘quick’ TMB was soon decided.

With map and guidebook purchased I then needed to work out distances - how far can I cover in a day? how much ascent will that be? which huts do I book?! Having walked the Aiguille Rouge last year I planned a four day loop from Les Houches back to my tent in Argentière with the option to complete the loop on Day 5, legs and weather depending. From this I could book a hut night in each country rather than carrying a tent; less weight and more chance to attempt running.

Day One - The Wet Day: Les Houches - Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, 34km I spent all night listening to the rain falling on my tent and so crawling out of my tent I already had my coat on. The timetables suggested the first train to Les Houches was at 7am, but by 7.30 nothing had arrived. An hour later than planned I was on the train with sever65

al pain au chocolat and thankfully some rays of sunshine. The first ascent of the day took me to Col du Voza and the Tramway du Mont Blanc, I have to admit it wasn’t the most exciting, traipsing up a track along a ski slope.

Day 1, AM: Slogging up to Col De Voza

My original plan from here was the Col du Tricot variant and if time allowed Mont Truc. The forecast was for further storms and more black clouds were gathering; I decided to be

sensible and take the traditional route to Les Contamines before lunch. Despite more road than expected I was enjoying making my way along this runnable section…. until a torrential downpour stopped me, forcing me to eat lunch under a tree - not the sit down rest I wanted! The road to Les Contamines turned to a river and I was now getting worried about making the hut in time for dinner.

I made my way across the village hoping the riverside footpath was as flat as I’d read about, to make up some time. With the worst of the rain over and with the trees keeping me dry I ran for the next couple of hours and found myself at Refuge La Balme where lots of people seemed to be stopping for the evening. I continued on my own to the high point of the day crossing several large snow-patches with only the inside of a cloud to see. As I reached Col du Bonhomme I left the cloud behind and had the place to myself with great views.

On checking the book it was less than a hour to the hut and I now had wonderfully wild feeling. I made the hut 10 minutes before my intended time despite the delayed train. I was starving and had 2 hours to wait for the second sitting of dinner - which was worth the wait: soup and stew followed by chocolate cake and cheese. Just as it was time for dinner a family I had passed hours ago had only just arrived - they were a brother and two sisters and apparently were very thankful they could see me ahead while navigating the snow and cloud. For future reference the Croix du Bonhomme hut has beer on tap.

Day Two - The Hot Day: Croix du Bonhomme - Refuge Bertone, 45km I have to admit I woke up more tired than I expected; I’m not sure if that was due

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to yesterday’s distance or the disturbed sleep in the warmest of tiny, packed bedrooms. Regardless of the poor sleep the morning views from the hut were spectacular. After breakfast I returned to yesterday’s high point to take the Col des Fours high pass variant; a couple of patches of snow were easily crossed (in my trail shoes - others were not having such an easy time) before reaching the painted rocks to make towards the highest point.

The book suggested it was only a 40min round trip to the Tête Nord des Fours summit at 2756m - in reality it probably took 15 minutes to get the round summit table and then half an hour to take in the views. Descending from Col des Fours is probably where I lost some time, I spent more time wandering along Day 1, PM: Col du Bonhomme 2329m looking at the views than actually running, which would have been more sensible on a cool morning than later on in the day. Resisting the cheese for sale at Les Ville des Glaciers the day’s ascent to the Italian border began. Initially some steep switch backs lead to what seemed like a never-ending slope through meadows before the large, open Col de la Seigne.

I have honestly never seen so many butterflies! The inner geek was now sad my Alpine Flowers book had been removed from the bag! The Italian border marks the start of the stunning Val du Ferret stretching all the way to the Swiss border - which I needed to cross the next day! There was some great running down from the col but by now I hadn’t found any shade for hours and still had a long way to get to Courmayeur. After yesterday’s constant water fountains today was a complete drought and I really wanted to find some water, thankfully there was a freezing cold trough outside Rifugio Elisabetta.

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Day, 2 AM: Morning views from the hut The trails were now wide and rocky and passed rivers and small lakes. Having been looking forward to reaching Lac Combal I only realised after I’d passed it – it’s much smaller than the photos suggest! I had thought it was downhill to Courmayeur from here only to check the route and realise I needed to head back uphill in the direct sun after which the trail opened out onto a spectacular balcony. I was able to run until reaching the ski lift down to Courmayeur where I bought the best €4 small can of coke. Now here I must admit to cheating - I needed to be at my hut the other side of Courmayeur in two hours and the signpost stated it was still four hours way. Getting the last lift of the day and avoiding running down the ski access road was more appealing!

Despite only leaving Chamonix the previous morning the town seemed so busy compared to the trails I’d spent the day on. Too hot, hungry and worried about missing my dinner I had a sense of humour failure trying to work my way across the village to find my trail again, thankfully it was mainly shaded but, god, it was steep! I pushed on (with a phone call from Phil helping!) and managed to make Rifugio Bertone only 30 minutes late for the posted dinner time - apologising profusely and looking a sweaty mess they didn’t mind in the slightest and asked if I was happy to eat straight away as they were going to start serving, I was more than

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happy to oblige!

I sat down with a huge bowl of pasta and a confused American guy wondering where this sunburnt British lass had appeared from (and who kept asking where my partner was until he realised I was running alone). The Day 2, PM: Lac Combal heat and lack of water made the day tough - I made sure I ate as much as possible and bought extra supplies (Ritter chocolate) for the following day before watching sunset from high over the town.

Day Three - The Long Day: Refuge Bertone - Gite Bon Abri, Champex-Lac, 50km Food and liquid overnight combined with a better sleep must have done the trick and I woke up feeling ten times better. I needed an early start as today was a long one, 50km to Champex-Lac. After stashing the breakfast biscuits and a chat with the rifugio’s donkey I headed out early, straight onto a winding single track balcony trail over the Val Ferret and was running with a huge smile by 7am. I reached the next refugio by 9.30am which was timed with my exam results being released. Thankfully I had 4G and with palpitations I opened my results overlooking the Grandes Jorasses: thankfully I’d passed!!

The balcony continued until dropping down to a small hamlet with a campsite. Today I had a new strategy of never passing anywhere I could get cold liquid! Armed with more Fanta (this began an obsession) and an ice lolly I began the climb to the Swiss border at Grand Col Ferret. I stopped at the last hut before the border to make sure I’d had a proper Italian coffee before continuing up to the high point of the tradition-

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al TMB route. Yesterday’s more rocky col was instead a view of green fields, spotting the obvious long gradual path that I knew I could run all the way down to the valley. More iced tea at La Peule and I realised I’d missed the small path that is used during UTMB so I continued on down the traditional route to La Fouly.

Descending I met two British ladies who were stopping at La Fouly to get the bus to Champex, I sheepishly explained I was intending on running the same way and left with them shouting after me they hoped I got there in time. Passing a few more concerning signs suggesting four more hours to Champex I decided to press on, initially on flat open riverside trails and then back onto Day 3, AM: Cold liquid strategy woodland tracks and narrow paths with chains where there had evidently been landslides. Running though the woods I was caught up by a British guy who automatically assumed I was also reccying the UTMB route. It turned out he too had started in Courmayeur this morning and had a place in this year’s UTMB, having been timed out 2 two years previously.

I managed to keep up with him for maybe an hour before losing pace, only to meet him again for the climb to Champex after he took a wrong turn. I again managed to keep pace uphill with him before inevitable leg failure as we reached the village. I’m not sure if I’m most pleased about covering 50km that day or managing to keep up with an actual UTMB runner! I was very definitely late for dinner now and my gite wasn’t actually in Champex, it was up the hill the other side of Champex. Arriving covered in dust and again profusely apologising they assured me they had kept my dinner ready and I sat down to a huge bowl of chilli.

Day Four - The Scrambly Day: Lac Champex – Argentière, 28km After a chilly night sleeping in the gazebo (cheaper than an indoor bed) with throbbing legs waking me every hour I decided to head back down to Champex to re-

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stock. Arriving at the footpath turning, a familiar face was running towards me! The chap I ran with yesterday evening was carrying on his UTMB reccy whereas I was heading for the variant route he assured me he was also very late for his dinner and then ran off towards Bovine. I got more Swiss chocolate supplies and some fresh peaches. Leaving Champex to start heading for my route I bumped into one of yesterday’s British laDay 4 AM - the route to Fenetre de Arpette dies - she was heading for the low route as she didn’t like scrambling while her friend had set off early for the variant - she was very keen to know if I’d made it without getting the bus! The Fenetre d’Arpette variant is described as a wild and remote col. While eating dinner last night I’d heard a group discussing if it was re-opened yet - it turned there had been a footpath slide a few days before, but was now back to normal.

The first trail out of Champex is in beautiful woodland before passing through some higher meadows. I would certainly agree it is the most remote section of TMB, I barely saw anybody until I reached the col. The path becomes more rocky before reaching a boulder field where I *may* have had a short nap. The painted way markers were rather infrequent and I went a bit off-piste bouldering some of the boulders. The final section is a steep scrubby path that seemed to be causing everybody else trouble; I had grip but it was difficult to avoid people sliding into me!

The col is nothing like the previous days’ cols - only space for a handful of people between cliffs either side - it really is a window. Unfortunately for me there was a large group all playing music from radios and shouting to each other, I never really got to appreciate the views until descending. The views from this side stretched out over the Trient glacier and the valley below. It was difficult to run this section: steep and rocky with slippy grit and unlike the previous days there was nowhere to top-up water. Descending here I also caught up with the second of the British ladies, this time 71

walking with a group. She was also keen to know if I’d reached Champex without using the bus!

I reached Villes du Glacier hoping they had a fountain but instead it was 10 CF for water so I settled for the best apricot tart I’ve ever had and more Fanta. This was decision time, it was later than anticipated and the next section to Col du Balme required another long uphill and I knew my next water wouldn’t be until La Tour. Or I could run down to join the traditional route at Trient and catch the train to my tent given I had run the Col du Balme section before 4 days earlier I knew it was more Day 4, PM: Much needed apricot tart at Chalet du Glacier sensible to head downhill and get some fluids. Here I passed four fountains and topped-up from each before getting the train from Vallacorine to Argentière. I was welcomed back to my tent by Wessex Mountaineering Club who I’d met before I left and who had adopted me. I was given the only campchair and then quizzed on my adventure for over an hour before rolling into my tent.

Day Five - The Short Day: Argentière - Les Houches, 31km Well that was it, all I had to do today was a play along the Aiguille Rouge and down to my starting point at Les Houches. I had headed up the ladders to Lac Blanc last year so followed new trails along to Plan Praz allowing fairly speedy running for me! The main difficulty of this section is watching where you put your feet when the views across Mont Blanc are such a distraction. I stopped for a drink at Plan Praz and made Le Brévent summit an hour later - initially there is a beautiful wild section with views to the north. After climbing some ladders I suddenly found myself amongst the crowds at the lift station!

The views over Mont Blanc are spectacular but it was too busy for me to hang around. With storm clouds growing it was now downhill all the way, with the pizza van due at the campsite! I made my way down to the valley initially passing Aiguillete Les Houches and Refuge de Bellachat then down though the woods, thankfully legs weren’t too tired as the descent is rather steep. I reached the train station by 3pm feeling particularly pleased with myself - Day 5 and I had run faster and for longer than the previous days. Tour du Mont Blanc done!

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Above Day 5, AM: Aguilles Rouges trails Right Day 5, AM: difficult to watch your footing with these views!

Below Back in Les Houches

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The Forbes Arête, Aiguille du Chardonnet AD, III, 3 - 5 hours. One of the best routes of this grade in the Alps, the Forbes has everything you look for in an alpine adventure - excellent climbing, stunning views and a real high mountain feel. The route is often underestimated though, so start early and leave plenty of time for the descent (Rockfax description).

1. Chasing a Dream - John Vaughan

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blame Facebook. And maybe my longstanding inability to say ‘No’…

Once upon a time Many years ago a small group of us traversed Mont Blanc by the Trois Monts route, starting from the Cosmiques Hut, over Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Maudit to the summit, descending via the Goûter Ridge to the Tête Rousse. At the time I was worried it might disappoint - a caterpillar of climbers ticking the highest point in western Europe ‘because it’s there’. In reality it was a fantastic mountain day and all the better for being snatched between two outrageous Alpine storms.

With none of us having any previous Alpine training or experience we learned and acclimatised by trial and error, wandering tentatively across heavily crevassed glaciers and climbing easier peaks like the Petite Aiguille Verte and Dômes de Miage as a prelude to the main event. As part of this ‘training’ we booked into the Albert Premier Hut above the Glacier du Tour with the intention of climbing the Aiguille du Tour. In the event the weather was less 74

than perfect so we settled for a murky ascent of the glacier in thick cloud and snow as far as the Col du Tour. The following day dawned bright, crisp and clear, providing an impressive panorama of the peaks surrounding the Tour Basin, including the Aiguille du Tour. However, with the latest forecast suggesting a limited window of ‘beau temps’ we decided to descend to the valley, contacted the Cosmiques Hut and went straight up to prepare for our traverse the next day.

That panorama from the Albert Premier was dominated by the stunning profile of the Aiguille du Chardonnet, including its best known route, the Forbes Arête, which follows the skyline ridge. That first sight made me wish I had the experience and ability to climb it. In my mind’s eye the Chardonnet became the archetype for the perfect Alpine peak and the Forbes Arête the exemplar of a classic Alpine route. But with neither the necessary Alpine credentials, nor suitably skilled partners, it remained a distant dream.

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The trap Fast forward two and a half decades to 2017 - I’m now 69 years old. In the intervening years I’ve climbed far and wide on rock, snow and ice and acquired a reasonably varied summer and winter CV but beyond a couple of trips to the Ecrins, still almost nothing in the higher Alps. That dream had slowly faded in the face of advancing years and was eventually packed away in the ‘might have been’ box.

Then, late one evening, idly flicking through Facebook, I came across a post from Tim Blakemore, a climber and mountain guide based in Chamonix, listing all the routes he’d climbed with friends and clients that summer. I’d met Tim a couple of times on a climbing trip to Mingulay and then later on Kalymnos.

His ability was obvious and his enthusiasm infectious as he pulled over the top of Voyage of Faith (E3 5c) on Dun Mingulay with delight written all over his face - so much so that John Spencer and I repeated the route the next day, confirming its atmosphere and quality.

Scanning Tim’s list I noticed he’d climbed a couple of routes on the Chardonnet, including the Forbes Arête.

Heedless of the potential pitfalls of social media seduction, the ‘might have been’ box was dragged from the depths of memory, dusted off and prised open. Out tumbled the forgotten dream and within half an hour an exchange of messages had secured Tim’s services towards its possible realisation during 2018.

Inevitably, over the following weeks and months the doubts crept back in. Was this really a good idea? Was I physically, mentally and technically up to the task? I started running again (after decades of avoidance) to improve my stamina and endurance - I could feel the benefits but my knees began to protest. Long winter days on Scottish hills reassured me about my fitness while minor epics on South Pipe Direct (Creag Meagaidh) and Taxus (Beinn a’Dothaidh) stoked doubts about my mental resilience and technical ability. As crunch time approached I became both more nervous and more committed to the idea.

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From dream to reality Finally, the time became ‘Now’. An unremarkable flight to Geneva, transfer to Chamonix, overnight at Gite le Vagabond and suddenly I was standing in a car park with my clothing and kit spread on the tarmac and Tim telling me to put most of it back in my duffel and pack the remaining few bits and pieces into my rucksack. Before I’d really had time to collect my thoughts we were on and off the téléphérique and following the contouring track round to the Albert Premier Hut at the foot of the Glacier du Tour. It has to be said that the modern hut is a far cry from the rather squalid building I remember from my previous visit.

A starter for 10 - the Aiguille du Tour Early in our conversation Tim suggested we climb either the Aiguille du Tour or the adjacent Aiguille Purtscheller by way of acclimatisation and to allow him to evaluate my capability, fitness and expectations for our main objective. In the event he settled on the Arête de la Table on the Aiguille du Tour - a common precursor to the Forbes Arête.

General conditions were not the best after a period of warmer weather had softened and stripped some of the ice from the steeper faces and meant the remaining snow and ice cover might not fully refreeze overnight. Stumbling across the mixed snow and loose moraine as we left the hut in the early morning darkness, I felt clumsy, disorientated and painfully aware of my unfamiliarity with the Alpine environment as we descended onto the glacier, donned crampons and roped up. However, as we moved slowly upwards the steady rhythm and familiar crunch of big boots on hard snow helped calm my nerves and focus my mind on the task ahead.

The weather was overcast, murky and not particularly cold. Sporadic light showers of sleet and snow added atmosphere and a sense of isolation. A few scattered lights suggested we were unlikely to have the route to ourselves. Potential conditions clearly gave a number of other parties pause for thought and by the time we turned off the main glacier track to head up into the initial snow basin below the ridge only

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The Aiguille du Tour Left: John on the ArĂŞte de la Table Below: John on the Aiguille du Tour, with the Chardonnet and Grande Fourche behind and the north face of Les Droites to the right Bottom left: Tim Blakemore Bottom right: Swiss trainee guide doing a headstand on La Table de Roc

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one pair remained behind us. Pausing to regroup, Tim noted there was some static in the air - sufficient to raise the hairs on his arm. In spite of the less-than-ideal weather we agreed to continue at a cautious pace, ready to reverse the climb if conditions deteriorated. As we started up the ridge proper it seemed the other party had decided otherwise as that was the last we saw of them. We had by now transferred from the ‘long’ roping Tim used on the glacier to ‘short’ roping as we moved onto steeper, more mixed terrain.

After a loose and gravelly start the ridge became more solid as we progressed upwards and almost without me noticing, the sky started to lighten, the sleet showers faded and the mist began to break, revealing the scale and majesty of our surroundings. As we scrambled up rocky grooves, over stacked blocks and around small gendarmes patches of blue started to appear. I still felt somewhat clumsy and uncoordinated but the climbing was straightforward and under Tim’s guidance, I relaxed into a slow but steady upward pace until suddenly, high on the ridge, we emerged under ‘La Table’ - a huge horizontal slab of rock, supported at its outer end by a small gendarme. Getting onto La Table is the crux of the route. The traditional approach is to climb onto an adjacent boulder and make an unprotected mantelshelf onto the slab.

As an alternative a handful of old tat where the slab abuts the main ridge facilitates a less elegant thrutch up a groove between the slab and upper wall. We thrutched Tim rather more gracefully than me.

At this point we were overtaken by what appeared to be a group of aspirant Swiss guides in training who leapt effortlessly onto the slab where one of them proceeded to perform a headstand on its outer end before soloing off towards the top - I was definitely not tempted to follow suit!!!

A relatively short scramble from La Table brought us to the summit, by now in bright sunshine. The panorama was stunning, dominated by the north face of the Aiguille du Chardonnet and the profile of the Forbes Arête. I was elated at reaching my first Alpine summit in 25 years (although conscious that our work was as yet only half done) but still intimidated by what tomorrow might bring. However, the descent to the glacier, traverse around the base of the peak and walk back down to the hut were straightforward and the excitement of the summit overrode any lingering apprehension.

The main event - the Forbes Arête Over our evening meal I asked Tim what, having now seen me in action, were the likely odds on me being able to manage the Forbes Arête next day. He was reassuring and confident that I would manage OK but with the weather forecast being less than optimal he brought our start time forward to the rather desperate hour of 2.00am.

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Tim also mentioned he had been contacted by Jack Geldard, one-time editor of UK Climbing and now an aspirant guide and microbrewery owner living and working in Chamonix. Jack was heading towards his final guide’s assessment and needed more quality mountain days to maintain his logbook, so he had asked if he could accompany us on the climb. I agreed without hesitation and Jack duly appeared later that evening.

After a broken night’s sleep, 2.00am came round all too soon. I’ve never been that good at early winter starts in Scotland, let alone the Alps, but moved on auto-pilot through breakfast, kitting up and heading back out onto the glacier. The weather was similar to the previous day - damp, murky and not particularly cold. With headtorch on and head down I trudged slowly back up the glacier between my two guides, still feeling tired from the previous day’s exertions. In the cold and dark of the early morning, serious doubts ran through my mind about my ability and endurance but Tim reassured me these would pass as dawn broke and the sky began to brighten.

As on the previous day the damp murk began to disperse as first light broke and the ground began to steepen below the Aiguille Forbes. We had reached the foot of the route and after a short pause, started to zig-zag up the snowslope. Being on more open ground than the previous day the immense scale of the route impressed itself on me immediately. The snow slope gradually steepened with sporadic, easily-crossed crevasses, then eased back after a short steep step and narrowed to a small snow ridge that ran up to a final steepening called the ‘Bosse’.

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Here the snow-cover gave way to a stretch of hard, bare ice which we pitched to gain the top of the Bosse and the upper snowslopes. At this point we were surprised by a local guide heading back down towards the ice pitches with his client, having presumably decided to take no further risk with the possible poorer weather forecast for later in the day. From the top of the Bosse easier-angled snow lead steadily up to the crest of the ridge at a small notch.

Fortunately the weather cleared and appeared more settled than the forecast might have led us to expect. This was just as well as by now I was getting really tired and had slowed considerably - I was grateful for the security of short ropes in front and behind as Tim and Jack cajoled and encouraged me to move as quickly as possible. With the loss of snow from some parts of the ridge we stayed high, climbing over or traversing round pinnacles and gendarmes to avoid dropping onto soft snow and loose rock on the flanks of the ridge. About half-way along Tim dropped back and allowed Jack to take the lead so he could assess his approach and technique.

After what seemed an eternity, one final gendarme, snow ledge and rock step and suddenly we were on the summit, taking in the majestic view across the Argentière Basin to the imposing north faces of Les Courtes and Les Droites. I was absolutely exhausted and slumped onto a rock to rest and take on board some food and drink.

It was difficult to believe I was sitting on the top of my dream peak of 25 years but I was almost too tired to understand and appreciate the magnitude and privilege of the occasion.

As suddenly as we’d arrived we were on the move again, heading for the descent couloir. Now running well behind guidebook time I was concerned the snow might have softened in the midday sunshine, turning a relatively straightforward descent into a nightmare of collapsing steps and insecure placements. In the event my fears

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Jack Geldard on the Forbes

John on the summit of the Chardonnet looking over the Argentière Basin to the north faces of Les Droites and Les Courtes

The descent.

Left On the Glacier du Tour.

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Right On the way back to the hut

proved groundless - the gully was well-stepped and the snow firm and supportive. With a big drop at its base this was no place for a lapse in concentration but the relentless downward movement over snow and loose rock punished already tired legs…

A couple of straightforward abseils and a short crevassed snow couloir brought us back onto the glacier and what felt like a never-ending trudge back to the comfort and security of the Albert Premier. I was back on auto-pilot but gradually understanding, appreciation and elation replaced the exhaustion and pain as I began to absorb what we’d just done to turn my 25 year old memory into a living dream. We lifted a glass in celebration.

Afterthoughts In my younger days I would have eschewed the idea of employing a guide in favour of personal self-sufficiency. As the years have passed body and mind are no longer as robust as they once were and I’m less focused on personal performance and more relaxed about the need for support and assistance. I couldn’t have done what I did without the help of Tim Blakemore who provided not just technical guidance but friendship, confidence and security, by turns encouraging and commanding as the situation required. Jack Geldard was an added bonus on the Chardonnet and I owe both of them a debt of gratitude for making an old man very happy.

One of the collateral outcomes of realising a dream is that it opens a door to new possibilities and ambitions. I learned a lot about my physical, mental and emotional capabilities from this brief Alpine excursion and I’m already signed up for a repeat visit next year as part of my 70th birthday celebrations…..

A welcome and well-deserved beer back in the hut (photos: John Vaughan & Tim Blakemore)

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2. Guiding on the Chardonnet - Tim Blakemore The Aiguille du Chardonnet is one of my favourite peaks to guide in the Mont Blanc massif. It looks like a mountain for a start: pointed and symmetrical, with ridges, couloirs and faces dropping from its summit. It’s how a child imagines a mountain should be.

There’s no really easy route either, so it demands a certain commitment and respect. Even the voie normale has serious sections. It can be time consuming in descent and not so intuitive if you are route-finding for the first time. Leave it too late and the snow that supported you so well a few hours ago will be balling up on your crampons, a trap for the tired and unwary.

It’s also an early season mountain (these days) so suits my preferred style of icy or mixed climbing. The North Face offers some magnificent outings, the most classic being the Migot Spur (D). This is a great route to test yourself before leaping on to full Grande Course (most of the routes on the Chardonnet are around 500m vertical) though, like many routes, the start rots out early and has some rock fall danger. If you’re acclimatised it is actually a full hour quicker than the Forbes Arête and gives perhaps Scottish Grade III climbing and then an elegant snow face/broad arête to finish.

There are a few good couloirs further right also which give D – TD outings. I’ve climbed the Escarra and Gabarou routes in this vicinity and as long as you can access them (in terms of rimaye or rockfall hazard) you will generally get up them.

The classic ridge is of course the Forbes Arête. It really is an alpinist’s route. A long glacial approach in the dark leads to steepening glacial slopes, which in turn lead to the ‘Bosse’. I always take two axes on this and have never regretted that decision, particularly if the glacial ice is starting to show through. This is typical alpine terrain. Relatively easy but serious so concentration levels need to be high and slips are not acceptable.

When the ridge itself is joined, crampons could be removed, depending upon

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conditions. When snowy it’s worth keeping them on as there are a few times the route drops on to the North Face and you will need them. When dry it’s quicker to climb without, though you need to perhaps climb a little more directly. Details of the route blend into one a little but it’s always longer than you think! The trick is nifty route-finding and nifty rope-work, in both ascent and descent - there are a couple of small down climbs and rappels. I think this is where a guide starts to pull ahead of the pack.

The descent is intimidating in some snow conditions (and dreadful when dry) but is quick if stepped and cold.

Down-climbing roped together is the ideal but sometimes long, tedious abseils must be taken. More rocky terrain is encountered before a two, final abseils take you to the Col Adams Reilly.

Looking down the Arête de la Table

I’m always torn here as it’s safe, so a good place to take a quick break versus the knowledge that every second is further heating the snow. Trouble in the Alps tends to be an exponential thing connected to time and heat.

A final steep slope over a permanent rimaye here leads to crevassed terrain with the odd steepening (I’ve been ripped off my feet here by a client before). Lastly is the long, hot and weary slog back to the hut where liquid awaits.

I’d bumped into John a few years ago and had been impressed with him and John Spencer cruising up Dun Mingulay. It might come as a surprise but I think less than half of my clients are what I would call ‘climbers’. So, when John got in touch I was pleased but aware of a small amount of pressure that he actually knew what he was doing! I also generally avoid ‘objective’ based bookings (normally Mont Blanc, Matterhorn or Eiger to a lesser extent) as if you fail (for whatever reason) your client is unpleased regardless of what you may have achieved. After that discussion (with all the caveats of weather conditions etc) we agreed to have the Forbes Arête as Plan A. I kept an eye on that route during the winter and spring and in all honesty it wasn’t looking great. I skied under the face on a guide’s assessment

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and it still looked awful, lean with grey ice. Eventually however the isotherm changed, it snowed and finally it stuck to the ice – we had no excuses.

Unless I’ve personally climbed with someone before I will always climb a training or acclimatisation route first before getting on something like the Chardonnet. We agreed to climb the Arête de Table. This route has a bit of everything but is way less committing than the Forbes and certainly shorter. We set off before first light and immediately the weather was poor – small amounts of precipitation and the feeling that the atmosphere was a little ‘electric’. I think this is again where a guide pays off and I intuitively felt that we should stick it out and slowly let things develop (other teams turned back). Thankfully things improved and we enjoyed a relaxed ascent (being joined by Swiss guides on their test) to summit in guidebook time which gave me the reassurance to stick with our main objective.

I’d been asked by an aspirant guide colleague, Jack Geldard, to join this trip. Aspirant guides need to collect quality, technical routes for their logbooks prior to their final exam and I felt it would be great to have another pair of hands on the route. We all got up at an ungodly hour (I can’t remember now but it would have been 02:30 or 3:00) and set out into the night. The weather again was really disappointing with low cloud meaning I actually had to get a compass out, not something I do too much in the Alps! We set off up the steepening glacier and hit hard ice on ‘the Bosse’. I was thankful for two tools here and actually put a pitch in as we found ourselves teetering a bit, not tied to too much! The Alps often throw up problems of ‘security versus speed’ and knowing when to slow down and be a wee bit more careful is as important as knowing when to speed up.

I managed to send a rock down getting onto the ridge but other than that it looked like things were improving. The weather that had been threatening was starting to clear a little and whilst it was cold we were moving ok, if a little slowly as a threesome. Time is exponential in the alps, though, and, a bit like when you use a tomtom to estimate your arrival time and see it slowly increase we started to slow.

I had faith in John though and knew whilst he was going to be knackered, he wasn’t going to do anything rash so settled in to it and kept positive.

The route itself is never really cruxy, just lots of problems to be solved quickly and safely.

In my mind in fact I was pretty relaxed on the arête itself. I knew John was a rock climber and at least we were always attached to something or other. I was mindful of our descent though, slowly heating up in the sun and it would be less secure.

The summit was attained and John stole a few moments to take it all in and get some food. We were probably a bit over half way (the descent is pretty quick but tiring) but definitely overdue. Again I was pleased that it was John and not someone less known to me. Being on a serious route with someone you don’t have confidence in is pretty awful and changes the way you mitigate the risks. We just took it all pretty slowly, the snow

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starting to ball a little and John definitely getting a bit weary. I just took it a chunk of a time and knew, once past the last rimaye it would be a long but safe plod back. And so it was.

We got back to the hut where it was an obvious decision to spend the evening (it’s a great spot to be) though young Jack had to run down to the valley where he managed to catch the last lift back to Le Tour.

John I think just enjoyed, or at least experienced the slow realisation of the achievement - two technical routes in a couple of days in pretty good style. His question the next morning confirmed without doubt how he felt about this sort of climbing: “What can we do next year as a progression?!”

We’ve got some ideas but that’s next year.

A Meeting of Minds

(photo: Tim Blakemore)

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3. A big day out - Joe McCarty Feeling confident after a successful ascent of Arête de la Table on the Aiguille du Tour (AD-) the day before, Phil and I set off from the Albert Premier Hut in the quiet of the alpine pre-dawn. Following the well worn path up the left-hand side of the glacier we passed some hardier souls, who had chosen to forgo the comfort of the hut and bivvy, emerging from sleeping bags and preparing breakfast.

Ahead we could see the bobbing lights of head torches as those who had risen earlier made their way to various routes, including the Migot Spur.

It was as we made our way across the glacier, mindful of the guidebook warnings of crevasses, that the true scale of the mountain Climbing up to Forbes through seracs became (photo: Phil Behan) starkly apparent. A pang of nerves bit in my stomach…had we set off early enough? did I have the skills for this climb? would the descent be easy enough to find? It had been only a year since I’d spent a nervous night in the valley watching, from the comfort of the chalet balcony, the lights of a party of three friends spending an uncomfortable night trapped by darkness and an encroaching storm still high on the descent of the Forbes.

Pausing at the base of the looming north face, we shortened the rope, and admiring the sunrise appearing above the Aiguille du Tour we were able to trace the route we had taken the day before, which also made us acutely aware of just how much bigger the task ahead was. We still had what felt to those of us more accustomed to the delights of Scottish winter as opposed to these larger mountains, a significant climb before we had dispatched the approach and could begin the climb proper. It was during this approach up the steep glacier branch

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that it became apparent that the snow on this aspect of the mountain was less than ideal with that feature most feared by Scottish winter climbers, windslab, making an unwelcome appearance.

On gaining the crest it became obvious that snow Enjoying the view stuck in traffic with a polish team conditions were (photo: Phil Behan) making any attempt to skirt the more troublesome gendarmes a difficult time-consuming and plainly dangerous activity. The nerves prickled again - we would have to stick dutifully to the crest. Moving together over consistently challenging terrain with first Phil leading the way then myself taking a turn at the front, we initially made good progress, easily staying ahead of a cheerful group from Eastern Europe.

This was interrupted by a steep notch in the ridge necessitating an abseil. It was while rigging this that Phil’s go-pro decided to make a bid for freedom, fortunately only making it as far as a patch of snow halfway down. More nerves, we were plainly becoming more committed by the moment. Further on an abseil diagonally down a smooth slab moved the prospect of a retreat back the way we had come from ‘unpleasant’ to ‘seemingly impossible’! The ridge seemed to go on with every minor summit reached only revealing another notch followed by another rise or another gendarme.

By this point the confidence I had felt on leaving the hut had all but evaporated.

The snow conditions, the eye-watering exposure and the ever-increasing commitment had taken its toll on my nerves and my climbing had become painfully slow and clumsy. The party behind us was catching us up at every pause to exchange gear. Fortunately, a handful of sweets and a blunt reminder from Phil that time was rapidly moving on rallied me to find another placement and seemingly in no time we had gained the summit.

Acutely aware we still had a long way to go if we were going to enjoy the promised pizza back at the campsite that evening, we paused only long enough for a quick

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photo and to double-check the descent description in the guide book. To my great relief the descent had already been well tracked out by parties ahead of us and it was easy enough to follow, though care was required in the rapidly Tackling a snowy section looking back towards the Grande Forche softening (photo: Phil Behan) snow before two abseils through the rock band brought us back to the glacier.

Even here the nerves would not fade entirely, what with the snow becoming worryingly soft and a glacier to cross before reaching the safety of the hut we had left only that morning. The threat of emerging crevasses was looming large as ever. During the same incident that resulted in an uncomfortable night out on the mountain Chris had suddenly found himself dangling on the end of a rope in a particularly large crevasse, only yards from the hut, something I did not wish to experience for myself if I could help it. So it was with a huge sense of relief and achievement that we made it onto the terrace of the hut in time to enjoy a wellearned coffee in the afternoon sun before facing the trudge back to the valley.

Sunrise over the Aiguille du Tour (photo: Phil Behan)

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Above: Joe on one of the abseils Above right: Passing a gendarme; snow conditions not brilliant Below: Looking back to the summit (photos: Phil Behan)

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4. An even bigger day out!

In the summer of 2017, a Newcastle University Mountaineering Club party comprising Ollie Grady, Chris Haworth and Patrick Arty climbed the Forbes Arête. Unfortunately they had a bit of an epic involving benightment, a bit of a scare and apparently and a touch of frostnip. Ollie’s pithy UKC Logbook entry reads: ‘Amazing route although could have been in better condition. Very little snow made the last section harder than it should have been and caused us to have to abseil the whole descent with about 17 abseils taking up a lot of time and leading to an unplanned bivi. Return trip over the glacier was interesting due to it been heavily crevassed. Looking forward to doing it in better conditions...’ which kind-of says all that needs to be said. All images in this photo-essay by Ollie Grady.

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5. So who was James Forbes?

Born into a distinguished family in Edinburgh in 1809 and resident there for most of his life, he was a self-taught natural scientist. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the age of 19, was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh at 22, and published nearly 150 scientific papers. These covered an enormous variety of subjects, ranging from study of a single boulder in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh to whole mountain chains. Other topics included the thermal conductivity of soil, solar rays, magnetic variations, temperature of hot springs, colours of the sky, mirages, and sparks from magnets. He was apparently dedicated to his work, which he ‘pursued with a grim and single-minded determination.’

He made many expeditions on foot across the Alps, adopting an ascetic mountain lifestyle, for example sleeping in shepherds’ huts, and was contemptuous of ‘ordinary’ Alpine travellers of the era. He opened up the Ecrins massif to outsiders, writing about it in his book ‘Travel through the Alps Savoy and other parts of the Pennine chain, with observations of the phenomena of glaciers’ in 1843. Indeed he was probably best known for his work on glaciers. He had a very public spat with Swiss-American scientist Louis Agassiz, another polymath, as to who first demonstrated that glaciers are viscous entities that flow like water, only slowly. Forbes spent a whole summer camped out on the Mer de Glace making extensive recordings using marker flagpoles and paint on the ice to prove his point. He was, by all accounts, ‘a strange and mercurial man’.

He was appointed Principal of the University College of St Andrews in 1859, and died in 1868. As well as the Forbes Arête, the nearby Aiguille Forbes, and the Forbes Glacier and River in New Zealand are named after him.

(Sources: ‘Killing Dragons. The conquest of the Alps.’ By Fergus Fleming, 2000, and Wikipedia)

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The Adventure of the Misplaced Eyeglasses Edited by Robin N. Campbell1

I

ROSE to stretch my legs and to afford some relief to my digestive organs, which had been doing stout work with Mrs Hudson’s afternoon tea. Holmes was sitting in his armchair, smoking and reading a monograph concerning Oriental poisons. I moved to the window overlooking Baker Street and stared out at the mournful fogs of a January afternoon.

‘We should get out of Town more often, Holmes,’ I remarked. ‘These damnable fogs will be the death of us.’

As I spoke these words a figure on a bicycle materialized below the window, dismounted, and moved towards our door. A moment later Mrs Hudson’s boy entered with a telegram.

‘Perhaps your prescription will soon be administered, Watson,’ said Holmes, ripping open the telegram. ‘Yes, indeed. And a fairly heavy dose at that. We must catch the Night Mail to Glasgow.’

I picked up the telegram and read as follows: ‘NEED YOUR HELP. COME IMMEDIATELY. RAEBURN WILL MEET AND ADVISE. NORMAN.’ The telegram had been issued from Fort William Post Office.

‘Good gracious, Holmes?’ I exclaimed in some dismay, ‘Not Scotland surely!’

‘I fear so, Watson. My cousin Norman2 is a most considerate and courageous man. He would not trouble me over a trifle. I deduce that he has been falsely arrested and charged with murder. Come, we must make some purchases.’

Holmes brushed my queries aside and swept out of the room. When I reached the street he had already found a cab. We sped through the murk to Marble Arch and alighted at a tiny dingy shop, Lawrie’s by name.

‘This gentleman requires a pair of your best Alpine boots,’ said Holmes to the shopkeeper, indicating myself, ‘and he needs them by nine o’clock this evening. Is it possible?’

Mr Lawrie, if indeed it was he, made some discreet measurements, consulted his watch and replied affirmatively. Holmes and he then embarked on some further exotic negotiations after which we returned to Baker Street. After dinner Holmes packed an extraordinary assortment of articles into his largest trunk before we rattled off to Euston. At the station we took possession of an unwieldy parcel from Lawrie’s and soon we were speeding northwards in a comfortable sleeping compartment of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company. Very early next morning we passed through Glasgow where our coach was transferred to a train of the 97

West Highland Railway Company. Eventually we took morning tea and gazed out at sullen hills around a grey ‘loch’. The tops of the hills were wreathed in snow and curling mist.

‘Cheer up, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘In thirty-three minutes we shall be in Crianlarich.

The attendant has promised us a capital breakfast there.’

‘Porridge, I’ll be bound,’ I remarked sadly. ‘But Holmes, tell me about your cousin Norman. Who is he and what is he doing in Fort William, of all places?’

‘There isn’t very much to tell. He is a research chemist at present engaged in secret work for Government, thanks to my brother Mycroft’s influence. He visits Fort William regularly in order to practise the art of mountain-climbing with his friends in the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Ben Nevis is there, you see. A mountain, Watson.’

At Crianlarich a surly youth entered our carriage with a hamper. It was indeed an excellent breakfast. We ploughed our way through kippers, bacon and eggs and hot bread rolls while the train chugged up yet more dismal valleys surrounded by still higher mountains. Finally, we crossed an endless waste of bog and water before careering down a series of giddy inclines to Fort William. On this last section of the newly-opened line Holmes pointed out Ben Nevis to me – a huge boss of ice and snow with black crags menacing the northern approaches. It was unthinkable to me that a man could derive pleasure from looking at such an ugly mountain let alone from climbing up it.

Soon we were lunching at the Alexandra Hotel with a small stern-looking young man with impressive moustaches and the carriage of a guardsman.

‘I am Harold Raeburn,’ he had said when he met us at the station.3 ‘Your cousin

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Norman is in grave danger and has asked me to inform you of the details of his case and to help in whatever way possible.’

After we had completed our meal, we took some brandy in the lounge. Above the fireplace there hung an enormous panorama showing every shoot and precipice of the northern face of Ben Nevis.

The remaining furnishings consisted of a few rough pine tables, several massive and evil-smelling armchairs and a menagerie of stuffed carnivores and raptors each of which seemed to have been caught by the taxidermist at the very moment of predation. An admixture of damp logs and peat Harold Raeburn smouldered fitfully in the cavernous hearth. While (Mountain Heritage Trust) we applied ourselves to the brandy Raeburn told us the depressing history which now follows, illustrating his narrative with the help of the large panorama and a scale model of the mountain in papier-maché ‘Two days ago Norman set off to climb the Tower Ridge,’ pointing to the largest and most repulsive of the precipices, ‘with a Mr Willoughby – an acquaintance of his from the Foreign Office. It was a fine day but they were held up by the heavy accumulations of ice on the Ridge. At the Great Tower, the crucial part of their climb, Mr Willoughby fell, the rope parted and he plunged to his death in Observatory Gully below. Norman continued the climb with great difficulty to the summit. There he enlisted the aid of a student from Edinburgh, one James Moffat, who was temporarily in charge of the summit meteorological observatory. The two men descended to the Halfway Observatory where Norman recuperated while Moffat continued to fetch the police and a party of club members attending the Meet here, myself included.

By first light we had reached the body. There was of course no hope that he would be alive. However, worse was to follow. Examination of the rope showed that it had been partially cut through by some sharp instrument some six feet from Willoughby’s waist. The suspicions of the police immediately fell on poor Norman. The question naturally arose why Willoughby would not have noticed this defect of the rope.

Whereupon someone remarked that he was very short-sighted. Despite careful searches, no trace of his eyeglasses was found. However, while returning with the corpse, the police searched the Halfway Observatory and discovered the eyeglasses there together with a small patent pocket knife.

Norman was immediately taken into custody. The theory of the police is that Nor-

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man contrived to dislodge and remove Willoughby’s eyeglasses somewhere on the Ridge, then sabotaged his end of the rope. On the Great Tower there is a steep part where Willoughby would inevitably have put his full weight on the rope.’

The north face of Ben Nevis (photo: John Spencer) Raeburn gestured in an unmistakable way to indicate the result of this misadventure and went on. ‘At the moment they are seeking the motive in collaboration with Scotland Yard in London. I surmise that, since Willoughby was employed as a secret agent in the Foreign Office, they are looking for some connection between his security activities and Norman’s secret work on disabling gases.’4 At the conclusion of this dismal speech Holmes congratulated Raeburn on his orderly presentation of the facts and lay back in his armchair, sunk in thought. In the ensuing half-hour he asked Raeburn only two questions. The first was to ascertain whether there were any footprints in the snow around the body when the rescue party arrived. Raeburn had been first on the scene and was adamant that there had been none. The second question concerned the location of the village fruit shop. As we had just consumed a vast dish of brandied plums, I could make no sense of this at all. Holmes then left us to make some enquiries in the village.

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Raeburn had been sent to the police station to arrange an interview with the prisoner for six o’clock, so I had leisure to turn over the facts of the case in my mind.

It seemed to me that the case was practically hopeless. If Holmes’ cousin had not cut the rope, then who else could have possibly done so? Willoughby? Only if we suppose that he committed suicide in this horrible manner with the purpose of implicating his companion in a murder charge! Surely a fantastic notion! Moreover, how could he deposit the eyeglasses in the Half¬way Observatory? So I ruled out Willoughby. It did not seem possible that some third person could have lain concealed on the mountain to spring out with his knife at the ready at the critical moment. And then again there was the curious and damning circumstance of the misplaced spectacles. Since no footprints were found beside the body, this imaginary assailant must have found time to whisk Willoughby’s spectacles from his nose before severing the rope and then, somehow on the following morning have left knife and spectacles in the Halfway Observatory. Incredible as it might be, this seemed to me to be the only conceivable solution to the case. No doubt we should have to examine the ground tomorrow for traces that might favour this outlandish hypothesis. I gazed at the panorama before me and gave a shudder at the prospect. I was still transfixed in the same posture when Holmes returned, slapping his arms to restore the circulation.

‘Well, Watson, I imagine you have solved the case. Everything you require is in front of you! You know my methods well enough to settle such a simple problem, I’m sure.’

Staring dully at my friend I told him my thoughts about the case.

‘Excellent, Watson, excellent!’ he cried. ‘But if there is no third man, what then?’

‘Then the only person who could have cut the rope is your cousin and he is doomed, Holmes. He cannot escape the gallows.’

‘Precisely, Watson, the only person who could have done it would then be Norman and of course we assume that he did not. Surely that suggests a conclusion?

No?’ I shook my head in bewilderment.

‘Well, we shall find out soon enough tomorrow. Let us hope that it does not snow before we reach the vital spot.’

When Raeburn had also returned we took afternoon tea and then set out for the police station. Sergeant McDonald welcomed us warmly, remarking that he

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was himself a student of Holmes’ methods, and showed us into the interview room.

Holmes’ cousin bore an extraordinary resemblance to my friend, with the same finely-cut features and air of asceticism very apparent. After some preliminary remarks of a personal nature they fell to discussing the case. I will mention here only those parts of their conversation which add to Raeburn’s narrative.

Holmes had just asked for a description of the crucial section of the route, the direct ascent of the Great Tower.

‘Well, Sherlock,’ said the prisoner, ‘the difficulties began above a small platform some sixty feet below the summit of the Tower. I was able with the assistance of footholds on Willoughby’s shoulder and on his ice-axe, which he had jammed in a crack at arm’s length, to reach good handholds and pull myself onto easier ground5. After this, the angle and the difficulties decreased towards the summit of the Tower.

Then I called out to Willoughby and took the strain on the rope. You see, he could not follow without the assistance of the rope. At this point I heard a cry from below and the Norman Collie (Portrait held in Scotish National Gallery) rope went slack in my hands.’ On saying this, he plunged his head on his hands. ‘I shall never forget his scream of horror as he plummeted to his death on the rocks below. It was ghastly – inhuman.’

After a brief interval Holmes asked, ‘Did you see anything of this, Norman? Did you notice anything unusual whatever at the time of the accident?’

‘No, nothing. I could not see Willoughby because of the convex curve of the ridge, nor even the place where he landed.’

‘And how do you account for the discovery of Willoughby’s eyeglasses and the penknife at the Halfway Observatory?’

‘I cannot account for the spectacles at all. He was wearing them when I last saw him 102

below the Tower. As for the knife, it is mine. I always carry a pocket knife while climbing – they are often useful. I’m afraid I have given you a hopeless task, Sherlock. The evidence against me is too strong.’

‘Nonsense, Norman!’ Holmes retorted. ‘I understand everything about this case except the motive. Your next night in this miserable gaol will be your last. Count upon it.’

At this display of confidence the prisoner visibly brightened and we left a much happier man behind us as we trundled back to the hotel in our dogcart. However, as I looked up at the great dark mass of the mountain I could think only of the rigours of the morrow. I could not recall a stronger feeling of apprehension since my time of service in Afghanistan. On that appalling march to Quetta each sunset had brought the same feeling of boneless dread as the mountains darkened around us and the night filled with the alien cries of the pursuing Afghanis as they settled round their campfires.

In the morning we were roused at six o’clock sharp and had soon joined Raeburn in the breakfast room. I had little appetite for the greasy slabs of bacon which were put before us. Holmes, though normally a late riser, seemed fully alert.

‘What a splendid day it is, Watson,’ he ejaculated. ‘We shall soon discover whether these small Scottish hills can rival the Alps for beauty, as my cousin would have it.’

Indeed, my spirits lifted a little when I saw the dawn striking the hills on the other side of the ‘loch’ with tints of rose and purple. And I felt more confident when we assembled in the stable yard. Raeburn and Holmes cut most impressive figures in their hard black Norfolks, heavily nailed boots and murderous pickaxes, girt about with ropes and rucksacks. I hoped that I did not disgrace them with the newness of my own equipment. The cloth of my suit was so stiff and rough, the boots so hard and heavy, the axe so alarmingly sharp that it was only with difficulty and some considerable trepidation that I was able to move at all. However, I managed to mount my pony without mishap and soon we were off, plodding through the village and then along a fairly decent track slanting up the flank of the mountain.

At the Halfway Observatory we stopped for a pull at our flasks and a bite of breakfast, then continued past a frozen ‘loch’ and over some hard snow patches which the ponies negotiated with complete indifference. Eventually we halted at the edge of an abyss and dismounted. Raeburn instructed the groom to return with the ponies to the Observatory and to wait for us there, then set off over the edge of the abyss, with Holmes and myself hard on his heels. Although the ground dropped with alarming steepness, the rescue party of two days ago had cut out large steps

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in the snow and so we were able to descend without much difficulty. We then began a long level traverse below appalling black cliffs festooned with frozen waterfalls and colossal stalactites of ice. At about ten o’clock we reached the base of the ‘glen’ at a point where a side valley opened out to the south. The precipice had assumed the hideous appearance of the panorama in the hotel lounge. Our climb began here in earnest. We proceeded up an extremely stiff slope of snow passing the base of the so-called ‘Tower Ridge’ on its left hand side. I found it very tough going and on several occasions appealed to Raeburn and Holmes for some respite. Holmes offered me a handful of coca leaves to chew (Raeburn and he had been munching them from the outset) but I thought it a disgusting and unhealthy practice and declined6.

After an hour of this purgatory we reached an area heavily marked by footprints

Shadow of Tower Ridge from NE Buttress (photo: John Spencer)

surrounding a depression in which I remarked the presence of what were undoubtedly blood-stains. Holmes made us stay back while he scurried about, comparing footprints with drawings he had obtained from Sergeant McDonald. Raeburn commented on the agility with which my friend moved about on the steep snow, using his pickaxe purely for balance and rolling his ankles over so that all of his bootnails were always dug into the snowcrust.

‘Ah yes,’ said Holmes abstractedly, ‘I learned this method from a Swiss colleague of mine, Monsieur Phildius of Geneva. I shall write a letter of introduction for you so that you may study with him on your next visit to the Alps.’ 7

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Suddenly Holmes pointed to the ground and cried out, ‘Raeburn! What do you make of these marks?’

We moved up and peered at a spot close to the bloody hollow. I could see two marks each shaped like an X with deeper indentations at the extremities of the cross-pieces and about four or five inches across.

‘Well, sir,’ said Raeburn slowly, ‘that’s very strange indeed. They look like these new-fangled instep climbing-irons that Eckenstein8 has been trying out. Perhaps his friend Crowley9 wore them – he was with the party – but it’s odd that we didn’t see them lower down. They may have been obliterated by other tracks, or perhaps he wore them only for this last steep section. After all, most of our members regard their use as illegitimate.’

‘I see,’ said Holmes. ‘Then we shall discuss the matter with Mr Crowley at the hotel. In the meantime we must record the marks for I suspect that they may be vital evidence.’

To my astonishment, Holmes rummaged in his rucksack and withdrew a foot rule and a small camera.

‘I borrowed this from Dr Inglis Clark10 at the hotel,’ he explained. ‘He is an electrochemist as well as a mountain-climber. He was given this pocket camera by the famous photographer Stieglitz. A wonderful addition to the armoury of the consulting detective, don’t you think? Now, Raeburn, we must proceed to the scene of the accident. How shall we do that?’

Raeburn unwound a rope and tied one end onto his waist, myself in the middle and the other end to Holmes. Then he began to cut a ladder of steps up the steep snow above us. We continued in this way until the crags began to close around us, whereupon we embarked upon a tiny ledge leading onto and across the righthand crag. This was a most ticklish manoeuvre and only one of us could move with safety at a time. I will spare you a description of the horrors of this passage.

Suffice it to say that it surpassed in awfulness the traverse of the ledge above the Reichenbach Falls which I made on that fateful day when Moriarty fell to his death.

Eventually we stood poised on the crest of the Tower Ridge at a small uncomfortable platform. Immediately above us the ridge reared up perpendicularly. I recognised it as the last bastion of what Raeburn had called the Great Tower.

‘This is the exact spot where Willoughby fell?’ asked Holmes.

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‘Well, perhaps a few feet higher,’ said Raeburn.’ He began to climb from this ledge and we may suppose that he fell almost as soon as his weight came on the rope.’

Holmes began to make a minute examination of the traces in the scraps of snow and ice adhering to the backbone of the ridge. After a moment he cried out in evident satisfaction and turned to face me. ‘Now, Watson, I have established to my satisfaction that no third person was here. There is no place where he could have been concealed save on the ledge by which we arrived and that bore no traces of previous visitors. Do you recall your own analysis? If the rope was not cut by Norman or Willoughby, then someone else must have cut it. But there are no traces of any third individual. Willoughby and my cousin are eliminated from consideration, the former because of the strange migration of the eyeglasses, the latter by hypothesis. What can we now conclude? Recall my maxim: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be true.’

I could think of nothing except the inane remark that the deed must have been done by a person who left no traces.

‘Outstanding, Watson,’ he cried. ‘And so?’

But here Raeburn stepped in, ‘By a bird!’ he exclaimed. ‘Perhaps a large macaw or a Philippine Monkey-eating Eagle?’

‘Precisely so,’ said Holmes, somewhat discomfited – or so it seemed to me. ‘My own preference is for the Hyacinthine Macaw of Brazil, Anodorhynchus hyacinthus.

But you know your birds uncommonly well, Raeburn!11 Phillipine Monkey-eating Eagle indeed! I had not thought of that.

You see, Watson, the hypothesis of a large and powerful bird explains everything.

‘It swoops from its 106

A Philippine Monkey-eating Eagle (photo: Rich Lindie Rare Birds Yearbook)

lair, bites through the rope – a trifle to such a brute – descends to the corpse and returns with the spectacles to its trainer. Moreover, the assumption that it was a macaw is favoured by the hideous screech which so affected my cousin and by the curious traces which I photographed. Not instep climbing irons, but the characteristic talon-print of a large psittaciform! And, look here!’ Holmes pointed to a group of four tiny punctures in a patch of snow, ‘Here once again is the bird’s spoor!’

‘But who is the trainer and why did he do it, Holmes?’ I expostulated.

‘I think we shall find the answers to these questions by asking Mr Moffat in the summit Observatory, Watson. Let us be off now, Raeburn. The day is wasting!’

We retraced our steps along the ledge and after a tiring climb up a steep funnel of snow broke through a cornice formed by action of the wind to reach the final bare slopes of the mountain. The Observatory, a squat structure draped in frozen crystals of fog and of a very sinister appearance, crouched beside the summit. Holmes pushed in the outer door and lit a small paraffin lamp hanging on the inner door.

We removed our boots, opened the inner door and climbed down a ladder into the Observatory. We found ourselves in a sparsely furnished room containing a small library and a collection of curious scientific instruments. Raeburn and I were content to sit while Holmes searched the building with customary meticulousness.

It was plain that Moffat was no longer resident. When Holmes had concluded his researches he seemed rather disappointed.

‘Moffat is undoubtedly our man, gentlemen. My enquiries in the village revealed that on his journey here his luggage contained a large wooden crate which surely concealed the wretched bird, drugged I suppose, and that throughout his stay here he has bought uncommonly large quantities of fruit – its natural diet. The needs of the Phillipine Eagle would have been somewhat harder to supply, Raeburn! But there is no trace of the animal here; no feathers, no droppings, nothing.

Moffat has been most admirably thorough. We must have physical evidence of the bird to convince the police.’

‘Perhaps he threw such things away along with the ordinary rubbish,’ remarked Raeburn. ‘I will show you where the rubbish is usually deposited.’

We resumed our boots and followed Raeburn out onto the summit. He led us to a point on the cliff-edge which protruded to the north and pointed down into a deep and narrow chasm. My stomach lurched at the sight of it. An apparently perpendicular snow funnel, topped by an enormous cornice led down to a slight bay before plunging downwards once more in the form of a frozen blue waterfall. In the bay we could see a smudge of colour where the rubbish had accumulated.

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‘Gardyloo Gully.

It is named after the old Edinburgh street cry which accompanied the throwing of excrement from high windows,’ explained Raeburn.

‘There is nothing else for it,’ said Holmes. ‘We must investigate these traces.’

The Ben Nevis Observatory in winter garb With a heavy heart (photo: Scottish Meteorological Society collection) I paid out rope as Raeburn kicked and hacked his way down through the cornice. Despite all the trials of the day I had borne up well, so well that I had surprised even myself. However, I had thought our efforts to be at an end and this unexpected further encounter with the precipice quite unmanned me. I begged Holmes to be left behind, but to no avail.

‘No, Watson, you must remain with us. You are safer on the precipice with us than wandering alone on the summit. I dare not leave you.’

I was so dispirited that I failed to react to the aspersion of incompetence cast by this belittling remark. I abandoned myself to my fate and thrust myself over the edge of the abyss enjoining Holmes to keep the rope taut. Remarkably, I did not fall. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the next step downwards and dug my pick-axe deeply into the snow. Soon I had joined Raeburn just above the slight hollow where the rubbish lay and could watch Holmes’ fearless descent of the funnel with astonishment. On the final manoeuvre to gain the hollow Raeburn proceeded very cautiously, prodding the snow ahead of him with his axe.

‘This hollow is the outlet of an ice cave,’ he explained, ‘and we must take care that we do not fall through.’

Just before reaching the base of the hollow his axe passed easily through and in a moment he had excavated a circular aperture something like a London manhole. We

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moved gingerly around this and began to examine the pile of rubbish. It was immediately plain that our search was ended. On top of the pile lay the wreckage of the crate and underneath was the body of the bird, a formidable beast about a yard in length from its poll to the tip of its tail. Holmes seized it to place it in his rucksack and then gave a cry of surprise. Pinned to the breast of the bird was an oilskin packet. The bird once safely stowed away, he carefully opened the packet. It contained a single sheet of paper addressed to Mr Sherlock Holmes and bearing the following sensational message: ‘I, James Moriarty, known to you as James Moffat, the son of Professor James Moriarty whom you foully murdered, have taken my revenge upon you. Your cousin Norman will be hanged for murder. Your brother Mycroft will be disgraced and barred from public office. Knowing that your infernal meddling would bring you here, I have mined the cornice of the Gully. You and your wretched accomplice will shortly be crushed beneath tons of snow. A fitting irony that your cleverness should be instrumental in your death!

Hail and farewell!’

‘So, gentlemen,’ said Holmes, ‘now we have the motive. I had forgotten Moriarty’s spawn.’

He then looked up to the edge of the precipice. I followed his gaze. On the very point where we had stood some minutes before we could see the figure of our executioner, observing us in perfect stillness and silence as if we were already dead.

This ghoulish apparition was rendered still more frightful by the circumstance that the face was almost completely covered with a black Balaclava helmet and a smoked-glass visor, recalling a mediaeval headsman. After a while the figure stirred, raised its arm slowly in salute and disappeared.

For the second time that day we had cause to be impressed by Raeburn’s presence of mind. Immediately, he seized hold of Holmes, pushed him through the manhole and lowered him into the cave by using his firmly-embedded axe as a pulley. When the rope slackened I was dispatched into the bowels of the mountain with equal lack of ceremony. The cave was illuminated by faint and eerie blue light transmitted through the waterfall. As I fell beside Holmes in the soft snow at the bottom there was a tremendous explosion from above whereupon Raeburn leapt down through the hole to lie at our feet.

The din of the explosion was followed by an ear-shattering rumble as huge blocks of snow cascaded about our prison, blocking the entrance hole and extinguishing the feeble supply of light. The rumbling continued for what seemed like several minutes, shaking the entire mountain to its foundations. Finally it stopped. Holmes was the

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first to recover from the shock of this terrific avalanche. His gropings produced a small pocket lantern from the rucksack and when this was lit we could take stock of our situation. Poor Raeburn was our first concern. However, the man was evidently constructed of iron. Thanks to the softness of the snow here, his fall of some forty feet had only winded him and he was soon on his feet again. It was evidently impossible for us to escape upwards. The hollow would be filled with heavy debris. Our only chance was to cut through the waterfall at its steepest section, that being both the thinnest part and most likely to be free of accumulations of snow.

We took turns to hack at the ice with our axes at arms’ length above our heads – an unbelievably exhausting business. But everything has an end and after an hour we reached snow and were able to push an axe-handle through to the outside world and thus ensure our supply of air. We ate a little and emptied our flasks. With the aid of shoulders and the rope we soon found ourselves perched above the wreckage of the avalanche which stretched far down the mountain towards and beyond the place where Willoughby’s body had lain. It was now going dark and we wasted no time in our descent12. However, seven o’clock came and went before we reached the Halfway Observatory and were able to rest – if that is the word – on the broad backs of our Highland ‘garrons’.

At Fort William we presented our evidence to Sergeant McDonald who took immediate steps to secure the prisoner’s release. I was so tired that at dinner I could hardly raise my fork to my lips and, were it not for the need to maintain certain standards, I would have eaten from my plate like a dog. My final thought before I sunk in deep slumber in my unheated bed was that of all the cases on which I had accompanied Sherlock Holmes, none had exacted such a heavy toll of strength and spirit as this extraordinary case of the Secret Agent, the Observatory and the Trained Parrot13.

Two weeks later Holmes and I were seated by the fire admiring the beautiful stuffed Hyacinthine Macaw which the police had brought round that morning, when the boy entered with the evening paper. Holmes, as always, began to read it from cover to cover. I could see that an item on the home news page had caught his attention.

‘Watson, Justice has been done. Most apposite justice. Moreover, we should have anticipated this turn of events.’

He handed the paper to me. The item read as follows: UNUSUAL DEATH IN EDINBURGH. The death has occurred in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary of James Moriarty, alias Mof-

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fat, a student of zoology at the University and wanted by the police in connection with a recent fatal accident in the Highlands. Moriarty died as a result of respiratory complications following contraction of psittacosis, the highly infectious disease transmitted by tropical parrots . . .

‘Indeed, Holmes, he deserved no better fate. But how could we have guessed?’

‘The smoked-glass visor that he wore, Watson, and the black helmet. It was not a bright day, nor painfully cold. He had photo¬phobia, which – according to Dr ___, your erstwhile colleague – is a common and distinctive symptom of the disease.’

Holmes permitted himself the merest suggestion of a smile, ‘Elementary, Watson, I should have thought.’

---------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------Footnotes 1. The manuscript of this story was prepared by me from a bundle of case notes signed

by John H. Watson, M.D., which I discovered in the bottom of a box of lantern slides in the old Clubroom. Examination of the slides made it seem likely that they were donated to the Scottish Mountaineering Club by Norman Collie. It is, as always, a hazardous matter to assign a date to Holmes’ cases, since Watson was (almost certainly deliberately) lax and, indeed, wayward in giving such indications. Early January 1896 seems the most probable date, shortly before the case of ‘The Missing Three Quarter’.

2. There seems little doubt that Collie is intended. The photograph recording the Inveroran Meet of 1894 (SMC Archives, and reproduced in Ronald W. Clark’s Mountaineering in Britain), which shows Collie on the extreme right, makes his resemblance to Holmes very evident.

3. Raeburn was the leading Scottish climber of his day. He also pioneered fine new climbs in the Alps and the Caucasus and published a textbook, Mountaineering Art, in 1920 4. Collie’s important work on the inert gases – neon, etc., is well known (see Christine Mill.

1984. J. Norman Collie. Aberdeen U.P.) While it is plausible that he might have worked on the poison gases used later in WWI, there is no published record of this work.

5. Evidently the same route as that later followed by Parker & Inglis Clark (see S.M.C.J., 1897, iv, 222).

6. The use of coca leaves by Victorian walkers has been explored in the SMC Journal (see S.M.C.J., 1971, 385 – reproduced in The Munroist’s Companion. S.M.T. 1999). Raeburn’s ready adoption of the habit suggests that the practice was not unknown amongst the early Club members.

7. Holmes was apparently as good as his word (see Raeburn’s ‘A Scottish Ice Climb’ in S.M.C.J., 1907, ix, 153 – reproduced in Ken Wilson’s Cold Climbs. Diadem)

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8. Oscar Eckenstein, an early Alpine Club member, pioneered the use of crampons and had several examples manufactured to his design.

9. Aleister Crowley, the self-styled ‘Great Beast 666’, was a fairly conventional mountaineer before embarking on his infamous career of necromancy. He was an early member of the S.M.C., pioneered ‘ice’ climbing on the chalk cliffs of Dover and led an ambitious but disastrous expedition to K2.

10. William Inglis Clark was a close friend of Raeburn’s. He was an academic chemist and pioneered colour photography and telephotography in Scotland.

11. Raeburn was an enthusiastic amateur ornithologist.

12. As this descent of the gully is earlier than that of Hastings and Haskett Smith (1897) it is clear that current guidebooks stand in need of revision. Moreover, Raeburn’s exact knowledge of the gully’s topography suggests that this was not his first descent (or ascent).

13. I think that this case must be identical with the one referred to by Watson in ‘The Veiled Lodger’ as the case of ‘The Politician, the Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant’. The disparity may be due to the well-known deficiencies of Watson’s memory or to deliberate concealment. After all, the cormorant – a bird of invincible stupidity – would be anything but an apt pupil.

------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------‘The Adventure of the Misplaced Eyeglasses’ was originally published in the Scottish Mountainering Club Journal, 1979, xxxi, 360-372, and later in Crags magazine. Thanks to Robin Campbell for permission to reprint.

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Holy Rocks: the Meteora Monasteries & Pindos Mountains of Northern Greece Lewis Preston

S

tanding in the plains of Thessaly is a place of exquisite natural beauty and extraordinary cultural, historic and religious significance. Meteora is an almost unbelievable landscape of massive conglomerate towers formed during the Pliocene epoch, 5.3-2.6 million years ago, when vertical tectonic movements resulted in the plain rising out of the sea with converging mountains exerting such extreme pressure that the sedimentary deposits hardened.

Aeons of erosion in fissures and cracks washed away sandstone and shale, resulting in a forest of fantastically shaped rock towers, with overhangs and caves.

From the 11th Century hermit monks sought solThe Meteora landscape itude and shelter (photo: Wikipedia) here, later audaciously scaling the vertical towers with rudimentary wooden ladders balanced on one another, seeking more extreme separation from society and commencing the ambitious construction of monasteries where retreat and safety from the Turkish incursions was assured. Meteora was UNESCO listed in 1988.

The name Meteora translates to ‘suspended in the air’. As well as the monks the setting eventually attracted the attention of rock climbers. Former NMC-member Bryn Roberts and I travelled there in October 2018 for a first exploration. We flew to Thessaloniki (SKG) and drove the 260km southwest to Meteora (it is 360km northwest of Athens).

We shared the Vrachos campsite in the village of Kastraki with French, German, Swiss and Greek climbers, but we never met another Brit the whole time we were there. The weather was settled following storms just before we arrived, never over-warm daytime temperatures dropping to cold, dewy nights.

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The only other time I have climbed on conglomerate was Los Malos de Riglos, rising from the plains of Aragon, south of the Spanish Pyrenees. It requires a unique style of climbing, forcing one to trust in pebbles, cobbles and boulders that appear only loosely connected to the rock. Sometimes a rounded depression hold is indeed the result of detachment of such extrusions.

Much of the early exploration and development of the towers was by German teams who bolted very sparingly with large ring bolts. Greek climbers have re-bolted many of the classic lines but kept with the tradition of minimalism.

Hence expect long run-outs between 4 or 5 bolts up pitches of 30-40 metres. We had a full rack of trad gear with us but never used it until the final day on the crux chimney pitch of the ‘Pillar of Dreams’ - ‘Traumpfeiler’ in German! - grade 5.9 (HVS 5a/b), on the Meteora’s most impressive tower, Holy Ghost. The NE pillar offers a 9-pitch, 250 metre adventure to a summit with 360 degree views of the surrounding towers and monasteries.

The Holy Ghost and ‘Pillar of Dreams’ (Traumpfeiler) In all we had six days of climbing and also visited four of the elaborately constructed and artistically frescoed monasteries.

We had intended to travel south to climb at Varasova, but the day before we set off from the UK, in a chance conversation with NMC member Astell on the People’s March in London resulted in a change of plan. We drove instead west and

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Top left: Lewis in the 5c+ squeeze chimney on P4 of ‘Pillar of Dreams’ Top right: Abbing off the Holy Ghost Middle left: Bryn relaxing on belay Left: Lewis on ‘Ypsilatera’, West Ridge Above: The squeeze chimney as depicted in the guidebook Opposite: Varlaam Monastery (photos: Lewis Preston collection)

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north to the Pindos Mountains near the Albanian border. Within the Vikos-Aoos National Park is the Tymfi Massif, comprising Mt Astraka (2436m) rising above the deep slash into the limestone terrain that forms the Vikos Gorge.

The region is famous for the Zagorohoria villages, so remote they were allowed autonomy during the era of Turkish invasions, resulting in a cultural flourishing of a unique architectural blending of slate construction in the natural environment. The evening we arrived in Monodendri village a ferocious thunder and lightning storm flooded the local restaurant and cut all mains power. We set to with the brooms and head torches to help bale out while other diners sat atop tables to keep dry.

We spent a couple of fair-weather days exploring the villages connected by spectacular stone-arched bridges across the lower reaches of the Vikos Gorge. I enjoyed a half-day fell-run up to the Gamila Refuge (1950m) under the north face of Mt Astraka.

This area of Greece is definitely worth a visit, although Meteora requires a very different approach to climbing than that appropriate at Kalymnos or Leonidio.

--------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes An enduring mystery surrounds a 1.8 metre-high metal cross kept at Varlaam Monastery.

The Serbian emperor Stephen DuŠan apparently ordered this cross to be placed atop the Holy Ghost tower, which in due course it was. However – and here comes the mystery - there remain no traces or record of any attempt to climb the tower (unlike the other towers). The cross was apparently still erect and visible in 1930 but when a film crew landed by helicopter it was on its side; it was removed and given to the monastery. The tower was climbed for the first time the following year. In 1987 French hot-shot Patrick Berhault attempted to solo ‘Pillar of Dreams’ (the easiest route up the pillar at 5c+) for a film about Meteora, but baled at 80 metres and had to be rescued. It was finally soloed in 1994 by American Jane Balistreri.

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Spacewalking Four Accounts The Owd Gadgees ’ll come clean, I’d never heard of the place before John discovered it whilst he was researching our forthcoming visit to the Northern Cascades in Washington State.

I

‘What do you know about Leavenworth?’ he asked one time at the wall.

‘Never heard of it’, I replied, and it turned out neither had he until he’d stumbled across it on the internet.

Shame on us both, two supposedly knowledgeable old geezers who’ve been around the block, for the latest (2018) Leavenworth guide lists over 1600 routes on largely excellent granite, ranging from 10m high roadside sport climbs to sub-alpine, multi-pitch trad outings. Who knew? Well my son who lives in Vancouver for one. Although he’s not a climber, he not only knew about Leavenworth but had been there a couple of times over the years, since one of its attractions is an annual Oktoberfest.

Other Leavenworth cognoscenti from our climbing circle revealed themselves, including El Presidente and Jim Rigg, also of this parish, who’d both climbed there.

And as for my old mucker Ian Rowe who lives in BritWashington State cragging areas. Washington Pass lies 20 ish Columbia, well it seems miles to the NW of Mazama that for Vancouver and Calgary-based climbers in the 1970s and 80s, Leavenworth was often the first rock venue to come into condition as the winter snows receded, so, yes, he too had climbed there....a lot.

Further research identified the existence of a route of legendary status, ‘Outer Space’. First climbed in 1960, somewhat inevitably, by the late, great Fred Beckey and Ron Niccoli. Beckey and friends had opened up the Leavenworth area in the first place, climbing the first route there in the late 1940s. They used aid on the FA of ‘Outer Space’ but Beckey returned with Steve Marts and freed the route three years later. At 290m long, it is usually climbed 117

in 6 or 7 pitches and is graded 5.9. The man himself included it in his ‘100 Favorite North American Routes’ and the route is widely regarded as the best of its grade in the Northwest.

We finally decided to base ourselves near Washington Pass on our Cascades visit, which is only 145 miles or so to the north of Leavenworth. Although our main objective was to do some mid-grade mountaineering and hiking, we weren’t averse to the idea of a bit of cragging.

‘Well you’ve simply got to go and climb Outer Space’ said Jim. ‘Have a great time in the Cascades,’ texted the President, ‘and while you’re there, check out Outer Space at Leavenworth.’

‘Without doubt’ agreed Ian Rowe.

What else could we do?

Topo from Cascades Rock, Blake Herrington

The drive from Washington Pass to Leavenworth was a journey of two halves. The first section, past Mazama and down the Metthow Valley, took us through a sparsely populated and rather dry landscape; small-holdings cultivating mostly, it seemed, grass and alfalfa; horses grazing in the fields; blink-and-you’ll-miss-them hamlets comprising a church, a store, a garage, a municipal-looking building, a couple of billboards about the forthcoming mid-term elections. All this under a very hazy sky with the ever-present smell of burning, for this was peak wildfire season. On the outskirts of the nearest town south of Washington Pass, Winthrop, looking for all the world like a music festival was a huge sprawling firefighter encampment, and indeed at least two major fires were burning and as yet only partly contained in the neighbouring back-country.

After a couple of hours we joined the Columbia River valley, major fruit growing country, the highway lined with vineyards, apple and peach orchards, stacks of crates by the roadside waiting to be collected, rows of small huts for the migrant workers who pick the fruit.

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Smoky Methow Valley

‘Bavarian-themed’ Leavenworth (hence the Oktoberfest) was pretty tacky.

It would be kind-of understandable if a small community of Bavarian émigrés had decided to recreate their homeland in this mountainous location, but it turns out it was a purposeful strategy by the town, which had no historical link with Bavaria, to theme itself thus as a tourist attraction as far back as 1964. The climbing guide claims this to have been ‘an amazing tale of fiscal

revitalization that attracts millions of tourists every year’. And it looked like most of them were in town today!

Manifestations were everywhere: ersatz Gothic script on street signage; the women behind the counter in the Information Centre dressed in Bavarian costume; the smell of sizzling sausages hanging over the town; an oompah band noodling away in the town square.

Having orientated we beat a hasty retreat to the ‘Wedge Mountain Inn’ motel on the outskirts of the town, treating ourselves to a night in a decent bed, a shower, and wifi. After a classic American breakfast the next morning – eggs, waffles with maple syrup, bacon and coffee – we shopped and headed into Icicle Canyon and to the Eight Mile campground. We were a bit alarmed to see how busy the Snow Creek trailhead car park was as we passed by, although hoped that might be on account of it being Labor Day, a national holiday.

After setting up camp, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the area opposite the campground, following climbers’ trails up the steep valley wall identifying some of the crags that constitute the ‘Eight Mile Area’, just one sector amongst many in the canyon. To give an idea of the scale, think Polldubh in Glen Nevis on steroids. The larger crags are around 200-250ft high, dotted up the hillside to a point at which the guide recommends a bivvy (see topo). As with Polldubh, routes can be enchained to give, one imagines, a rather big day out! We were amused to note, on Lower Eight Mile Buttress, in homage to our very own Al and Kat Horsfield two routes named ‘Mr Tremendous’ and ‘Ms Tremendous’, both 5.10b (E2, 5b/c),

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Bavarian-themed Leavenworth Left: Oompah band in town square Lower left: Bavarian signage Below: Topo for ‘Eight Mile Crags’ in Icicle Canyon Polldubh on steroids!

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the former attracting three stars!

Every source of information we had found about Outer Space mentioned how popular it is, and how likely it was there would be other parties, indeed possibly even queues.

Nonetheless, we decided on a relatively leisurely start the next day, and were pleasantly surprised to find the trailhead car park quiet, most of the people hanging around being runners about to embark on a mountain marathon.

The walk up Snow Creek was pleasant, in the shade and on generous switchbacks, with a slowly unfolding view of Snow Creek Wall. Initially seen in profile it looks like a spire, but as height is gained a full frontal view of the wall is obtained. The main feature, the Shield, stands out, on its headwall the line of the famous crack. Given the warnings about its popularity, we were pleasantly surprised to note that, as far as we could see, there was only one party on the route (on the crux pitch), and no signs of anyone else on the approach. Our lucky day?

After an hour and a half or so, a well-beaten path leads off the trail and down to the creek which is crossed on logs. A slog up steep talus to the base of the wall follows. Unsurprisingly, the climbers’ path ends just below the start of the route, being the most popular line on the wall by a long shot.

The original start traversed in from the right, via a couple of apparently rather scrappy, easy pitches.

Nowadays people usually take a Snow Creek Wall, seen in profile from the trail, more direct line up the first two looks like a spire pitches of either ‘Remorse’ (5.8) or RPM (5.10d) – we opted for the former – to reach a shared belay. We geared up, had a drink and a boiled sweet (Blackcurrant and liquorice from Morrisons - recommended!), and stashed one of the sacs in a nearby tree (one is well advised to do this to protect one’s kit from the ubiquitous mountain goats which are apparently not averse to munching on gear around

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Crossing the creek

Unknown climber seconding the crux pitch

the base of the crags, and/or trundling rocks from the top!). It didn’t take long to identify the line of Remorse, and, higher up, some of the features of Outer Space.

Time for lift-off.

John led off up P1, a line of grooves and cracks up to a belay bolt. The description of P2 – ‘Move left along a flake to the large ledge’ – proved a bit understated when it came to it. The traverse, although ‘only’ 5.8, involved a sort-of sideways shuffle using a set of downward-pointing flakes, requiring delicate footwork and careful placements to protect the second. John didn’t especially enjoy the pitch, but a boiled sweet cheered him up.

P3 was easier than it looked, taking a corner and slab onto Two Tree ledge. The crux followed. A steep corner crack led via a sprouting of fixed tat, the accumulated markers, one imagines, of many past retreats, into a niche. A brief rest, fiddle in a bit of gear, and you launch into outer space, yarding along the slanting flake crack, which is somewhat undercut and exposed, but with excellent gear if you can pause long enough to place it. An easier, vertical crack leads to a small ledge and belay. John followed steadily, mostly in silence, a sure sign he was focussed (this, in comparison to his ‘Everything’s-find-and-dandy’ hum, or his ‘I’m-not-liking-thisat-all’ grunt!), with the occasional ‘Watch me!’ I was pleased to see him pull onto the ledge, and was just about to remark how strange it was to have the climb to ourselves, when a head popped up over the bulge, a local climber soloing the route.

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After exchanging pleasantries he carried on ahead.

The next pitch was easier and rambled up knobbly slabs to a short corner and downward clamber onto the ‘Pedestal Belay’ ledge, situated right at the base of the legendary headwall crack. Now, strictly speaking it was supposed to be my lead, but John looked at me with uncharacteristic ‘doggy eyes’ and, thrusting his gloved hands forwards, with quivering lip and in a plaintive voice said ‘I bought these (a pair of crack gloves) specially to lead this pitch...’

Honestly, what else could I do but give him the lead?

So, after sorting the rack, off he went (I was joking about the doggy eyes and the quivering lip). The rope snaked out slowly but steadily, brief snatches John bossing the headwall crack in his new of reassuring humming drifting jamming gloves down, ‘You’re halfway’ drifting up, and in due course ‘Taking in’ and ‘When you’re ready’. What a pitch, 50 metres of a more-or-less vertical arrow-straight hand-crack. Choose perfect jams or dance up the chickenheads on the outside wall, or do both. I laughed out loud and whooped at several points as I followed. Absolutely fabulous. The Mountainproject website describes it as ‘One of the most enjoyable pitches in the world’.

I joined John on the small but perfectly formed ‘Library Ledge’. My lead again. A rather spicy bouldery sequence up a bulging finger crack and onto a large chickenhead on the right gave access to the continuation crack and another 50 metres or so of jamming to the penultimate belay, set a little way back. Now John and I use an absolutely foolproof method of rope management when we’re out of communication, which we now found ourselves to be. It’s simple. The leader takes in the rope until it comes tight then gives three mighty tugs which indicate ‘Climb when

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you’re ready’. It eliminates potential misunderstandings, those occasions when you weren’t sure whether they shouted ‘Slack’ or ‘Take in the slack’ etc etc or they weren’t sure you’d given the go ahead for them to climb. Did I say absolutely foolproof? Hmmm. Unfortunately on this occasion not so. John wasn’t able to execute the boulder start so decided to climb up into a parallel crack on the left, but with one rope running through my first two pieces of gear below and to the right. He thus needed slack on the one rope and tightness on the other. After taking in the slack and giving three tugs, I kept both ropes tight. The orders and expletives apparently emanating from below were lost to the elements. But eventually, thankfully, he managed to winkle the first piece out, step back left and John on the penultimate pitch thrutch upwards, at which point the other piece popped out, I took in the slack and up he came. The last pitch followed easy slabs to the summit.

It was wonderful to finally emerge into the warm sun as we had been in the shade for the second half of the climb. Topping out after such a wonderful climb warranted more than the customary handshake, and I believe we might even have briefly embraced in celebration, followed by photographs, yet another boiled sweet and a slug of water.

It’s possible to descend the wall by abseil but with darkness approaching, and wanting to avoid an(other) epic, we opted for the ‘walk-off’. This turned out to be something of a laborious affair, following a line of cairns down a loose and vegetated gully, before a traverse across, up and down a series of blocky ledges took us back to the base of the wall. A six hour round trip. The sac-in-the-tree was intact.

We ‘lunched’ on cheese, crackers, raisins, and oranges....oh, and another couple of boiled sweets.

The walk-out was not quite as tedious as expected; weary as we were, we were still coasting, on adrenaline and endorphins. Overtaking a couple of parties of heavily-laden campers on the way out of the backcountry, we were focussed on getting into town before the bars closed. We reached the car as night fell and drove

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Brotherly embrace at the top of Snow Creek Wall into town. Two pints of ice cold lager (‘Mexican Hombres’ from, appropriately, the Icicle Canyon brewery) in the ‘Stein Beer Hall’, picked from a choice of over 50 taps (I guess the Bavarian theme has its advantages), never tasted so good. We both agreed Outer Space was one of the best routes we’d ever climbed (and I’ve climbed ’Cameo’ (E1 5a) in Wilton One!).

And so, dear friends, if you’re ever in the vicinity....you know what you have to do!

(PS I was joking about the doggy eyes and quivering lip).

John Spencer

The classic American breakfast

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Road Trippers #1 You could say it was an accident. The ‘road trip’ that had started in Vancouver seemingly ages ago had so far gone well. After pitching camp at Applebee Dome (above the Conrad Kain hut in the Bugaboos) and an easy-going ascent of East Post Spire, the weather ‘crapped out’ - big time. Information and conversation at the hut suggested the chances of doing much were slim. Very slim! Solution: drive about 700 miles to southern Idaho and enjoy some hot weather and classy sport and trad climbing at City of Rocks. After an outstanding week it was time to leave and head back to Vancouver.

Having said goodbye to recently-made friends, we embarked on the long drive north. I’d known Pete for a long time and I sensed a plan was developing. ‘If the drive goes well we could stop off at Leavenworth.

There’s a brilliant route up there with our names on it and we could still get back in time for you to see your auntie before heading back home.’ We drove in 2-hour blocks on the understanding that if one felt tired Leavenworth from the top of Snow Creek Wall one stopped. About 12 hours later we stretched out in the van to enjoy sleep in what was left of the night.

We started a bleary-eyed walk up to Snow Creek Wall after a quick breakfast. The charred remains of burnt trees, evidence of the previous year’s forest fire, lay all around. The smell of burning was still in the air. After a quick stop to replenish fluid balance, we were ready for action. We ‘simul-climbed’ to the base of the crux pitch. Having a measure of familiarity with the route, Pete cruised ‘onwards and upwards’ and was soon belayed below the headwall.

After the easy start to the route, following the crux moves came as a real wake- up call.

Despite the shock to the system I soon joined Pete at the stance. As I looked up, Pete must have sensed a degree of apprehension on my part -“It’s not as hard as it looks.” The headwall pitches were outstanding. Stupendous climbing - chickenheads, stunning crack climbing and generally good protection. Sublime. Apparently the route-was featured in Fred Beckey’s Book, 100 Favourite Climbs in North America, and Fred was in the first ascent party. To say that it was worth the effort would be an understatement.

Jim Rigg 126

Road Trippers #2 In 1993 Bronwen and I spent three weeks climbing in Canada. Flying into Seattle was cheaper but less convenient than Vancouver, but was to have an unintended benefit. The majority of our time was spent with friends in Squamish, exploring the local granite, visiting the newly developed crags at Skaha in the Okanagan and touring the Rockies. At the end of the trip we still had a couple of days to fill prior to our flight back.

Our host in Squamish, Kevin McLane, expat Geordie and guidebook publisher, suggested we make a slight diversion and head to Snow Creek Wall in Leavenworth to do ‘Outer Space’, a sub-alpine multi-pitch classic in the Northern Cascades. We had done a ton of harder multipitch granite routes on the trip, so it was well within our comfort zone, and Kevin made it sound very compelling. A quick look at a map and our schedule confirmed we could (just) fit it in before our departure.

Nowadays there’s a load of information available about any climb, anywhere. In 1993 however, without a guidebook, we had to rely on a hand drawn topo from Kevin’s memory and a few notes on how to get there. ‘Park here, walk up the valley, look right, you can’t miss it’. In fact I had much the same amount of info for ‘La Demande’ in the Verdon Gorge back in 76!

The following day we drove down from Squamish and arrived in Leavenworth, a poor man’s Disneyworld of faux Swiss chalets....American style Bavarian kitch, perhaps a bit odd definitely tacky. The next morning we left ‘Oompapaland’ behind and followed Kevin’s directions; park at the Snow Lake trailhead and hike up the path. This crossed a creek then switchbacked up through trees and followed a beautiful tree-lined alpine valley. Sure enough a short stiff walk brought the wall into view through trees on the right. We found the climbers’ trail and followed it down through the woods, crossed Snow Creek by a fallen tree and hiked a steep path up to the base of the wall.

It should not have been a busy place, but even then the route was an established classic.

Accordingly there were about six people strung out over the first two pitches over on the right trying, in a rather disorganised way, to retreat. While that was encouraging – no-one would be in front of us - as we watched it became clear they would be ‘taking a while’ to get down.

Fortunately there was an alternative. A ‘direct start’ which curved up left before kicking right and joining the route above the traffic jam. My recollection is that these pitches were HVS(ish) grooves and small overhangs, not particularly memorable, certainly compared with what lay above. By the time we had reached a junction with the regular route the others had all reached the ground and were heading off, leaving the crag to us. I don’t recall much else about the climbing below the headwall.

But the headwall and its splitter hand-crack is truly unforgettable. Bronwen and I have climbed plenty of granite cracks, most are a bit painful, not least because you need to shove your feet in them to progress. Not here. Knobs of varying size plastered the wall either side 127

of the fissure providing comfortable and convenient footholds either side of the never-ending slot. It’s plumb vertical, with hand jams you could belay from for two full pitches. Its verticality is conveniently interrupted at the halfway point by a small, but perfect ledge. It was superb climbing with fantastic positions in stunning surroundings; like someone had pinched two pitches from the Lotus Flower Tower and transported them to Washington State. What more could you want? It was indeed heavenly and we topped out feeling a climber’s contentment. As we finished the route an afternoon storm rumbled in the mountains above. A reminder that while not really ‘alpine’ here in the valley, we were in the Hall of the Mountain King.

The potential for a wee storm added some urgency to the matter of ‘getting off’.

The descent down the flank was I recall unpleasant, even back then we had four bad knees between us and we were slow going down through the rubble and gully.

Despite being brought back down to earth by the descent (did you see what I did there?) we got back to the base and the car without getting soaked and headed for Seattle and our flight the following day.

If you are ever on the Pacific coast, or visiting the Cascades it’s a must do route. I promise you won’t regret the effort.

Steve Blake

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Blast from the Past You know, our ascent was fun and memorable, who can forget those sticky-out bits; there was a name for them*. The major historical interest was that Leavenworth became a rally for Calgary and Vancouver climbers at Easter break, so much pissing up etc at Lucky’s Bar. It was great fun, Lucky’s bar served buckets of beer after the lads sung ‘The Rugby Song’ which went thus: ‘Went to a house - Boo! A public house - Cheers!

They only serve pints - Boo! They served buckets - Cheers!’ or something like that.

The lads included John Howard (died in a fall into crevasse on the Athabasca Glacier, Canadian Rockies, February 1978), Roger Marshall (died descending Everest after an unsuccessful solo attempt, May 1987), and Ray Gillies, among others.

When Vancouver was wet in the Spring or Fall the lads would go down there; later on the Calgary Mountain Club would also go at Easter, so it became ‘a thing’. Once, when they arrived after work one Friday night, Lucky had the bucket ready with a bottle of scotch in it.

The locals also got into it to watch the Brits get pissed and sing bar songs. Maybe trying to offset the Bavarian thing they had just started to get into. Lucky owned the bar and was not a climber. Obviously it was good for business but he loved it all. Don’t know where or what of him now.

Ian Rowe

*‘Those sticky-out bits’, a.k.a. ‘chickenheads’, seen from above...

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Finally, a word from the man himself ‘Flanking the Snow Creek tributary canyon of Icicle Creek, a 700 foot wall acts as a gravitational force for climbing enthusiasts. The major portion of the broad wall is a shield of knobbly slab split by the 300 foot Outer Space crack and adorned with what have been termed ‘unbelievable chickenheads’. Climbers from all portions of the US and Canada have come to savour its magnificent upper pitches.

Enticing cracks such as the one on Outer Space became realistic ventures in the Cascades when Joe Hieb crafted 10-gauge hot-rolled plate into durable angle pitons up to 3 inches in width. Armed with such gear, Ron Niccoli and I uncoiled our 120 ft rope at a series of corners and cracks that bore toward the uncertain problems on the shield. When we finally attained the soaring crack, it was necessary to continue energetically. Knobs at the crack’s edge did not always have space for a foothold. We hammered in a few wide pitons and twice pounded wooden blocks for security, surely not as solid as camming devices invented later.

Move after move of strenuous hard jams became the routine. The steepness of the wall did not permit rests except on the knobs. At one spot the leader could wrap a nylon sling around a knob by means of a tight girth hitch. Placing protection such as hitches on knobs and the use of wooden blocks ultimately took more time than climbing. Six hours after we donned rock shoes, a gradual slab led to the tree-covered summit, a haven for curious goats.’

Outer Space’s sic pitches encompass entertaining, thoughtful climbing; you’ll encounter steep cracks with perfect jams, juggy flakes, slabs, roofs, knobs, and more. Bring sturdy shoes for the descent, and watch for ticks if climbing in the Spring.

Fred Beckey in: ‘Fred Beckey’s 100 Favorite North American climbs’

(https://www.climbing.com/news/the-masters-favorite-rock-climbs) Footnote UKC Logbooks lists 7 other climbs named ‘Outer Space’ in: the Australian Blue Mountains; Eldorado Canyon; Gull Zawn on Guernsey; Yunan, China; Tandelt in the Anti-Atlas; Tiger Wall, Sarawak; and Berry Head Quarry, Devon.

There’s also a ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ at Fair Head, ‘The Monster from Outer Space’ in Huntsman’s Leap, and ‘Happiness from Outer Space’ at the Roaches.

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Peter and the Icicle.

John Given

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he alarm rang as usual about seven and, as usual, was ignored. The debris attendant on three climbers sprawled across the floor of Blonde Nick’s caravan while the climbers lay on the bunks and struggled silently with their dreams, their bladders, and whatever else came to hand. The van rocked now and then on its rusty springs as gusts of wind blustered down Glen Nevis. During the next half hour mummy-like figures struggled half-upright one by one and pressed their noses to the cold and misty glass. One by one they lay back down without a word and, as sleep crept back in, a first peculiar ritual of the day seemed complete.

Outside it was snowing. Not up-and-down snow, but side-to-side snow. Although each climber was silent and appeared to be asleep, their thoughts were already up and wandering dreamily around the hills outside. They wandered slowly up to the highest gullies of the Ben, down which spindrift poured and over which cornices creaked.......down from the ridges and buttresses, where a rope of three would shuffle their feet on the ledges and freeze in the bitter wind.....down to the C.I.C, down the soggy path to the dam, down to the Golf Club, and finally back to the sordid dripping interior of the Van. This was the strenuous reasoning that lulled the climbers back to sleep, a process often mistaken by the inexperienced eye for simple laziness.

An hour later I woke to the sharp and painful knowledge that a second ritual of the day must shortly be performed, or a sleeping bag shortly be watered. I’d had a dream, I’d looked over the mountain and seen Hendrix on stage in Coire Cas. I kicked Phil awake and started to describe the scene. He rolled his head toward me and, with the air of an old and tired confessor, asked ‘What the fuck are you on about now?’

But he wasn’t the problem. I’d known him for years and we had developed a range of understanding about life and, broadly speaking, were in favour. Anyway he’d been climbing all week, an achievement almost unique in an inglorious decade of mountaineering, and was consequently knackered. The problem was Pete. He’d arrived last night fresh and keen from a conference in Aberdeen about how to die in the North Sea. It seems this is quite an easy thing to do and so, naturally, Pete spent the evening briefing us against such a possibility.

Short of a partner and a doss, a few beers later he had both, and we had the usual highly defined plan. Tomorrow we would have a look at ‘something’ and it would be ‘short’. Now, even though confronted by the white hostility of the day, he was up, obviously driven by a stronger will, or weaker bladder than mine. He made a brew and we sat, the three of us with glazed eyes and hands round steaming mugs, like refugees waiting for negotiations to begin.

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It was from such unpromising beginnings that the fragile possibilities of the day grew slowly into an Icicle that flows from the undercut base of Number 5 Gully on Aonach Dubh. A rare and elusive pitch this one, creeping down slowly through the empty air on cold nights, a tantalising possibility seldom strong enough to bear the schemes of those who stood beneath it. But this was the ‘Year of the Icicle’ when everyone’s local crag became an icecrop, guidebooks were left where they fell, and trails beaten to the most unlikely places.

So our Icicle had come of age…’Thirty feet…no more… good landing’ according to the authorative Englishman in the bar last night. Weeks On the left ‘Elliott’s Downfall’ at the bottom of No 5 ago in another bar in Keswick, Gully - just touching down (No 6 on the right) Davie MacDonald had wiz(photo: John Spencer) ened up his face and quoted us twice that height. But then who would buy a secondhand icicle from a man who was playing pool with one ball?

Secondhand because Cubby had climbed it but not before showing in passing that the ground below was indeed good to land on.

So that was it, just what we needed, short walk, one pitch climb and ‘…you can always come down if you don’t like it…can’t you?’

A few veils of snow drifted up and down the Coe and The Icicle was revealed, now and then, as a very small icy incident on a very large crag. A sabre-toothed gully with the empty mouth of the rock open and dark behind. It seemed to shrink to our kind of size as we slunk up the slope beneath, only to sprout up fast as when we stood with our necks bent back at the dripping bottom. A clear forty feet of it hung completely free, its tip tickling the slope below, with a further fifteen or twenty so

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feet of vertical clinging to the rock until it eased back into the gully above.

It was Pete’s pitch. He’d been here before and this time was psyched up to push things to a conclusion. Phil and I slouched about, smug in the knowledge that today at least there would come no moment high and lonely on the ice with all the choices gone. From this comfortable position we generously offered Pete our various assessments of the problem.

He racks up his gear in a suspiciously systematic way for someone who claims this is his third Scottish ice route.

Nobody’s fooled though, because he’s swopped us a Devil’s Appendix for a Curtain and the Karakoram for a Carnmore.

Mysteriously, events have now developed their own momentum and the cold shower of meltwater in which we stand evokes no more comment than Pete’s throwaway line about his jacket being not much good below twenty thousand feet.

He climbs up and down the first dubious ten feet or so to satisfy himself the ice is ok and, since it seems to be, he ties on the ropes and makes a start. The first few fragile moments pass to the sound of tinkling ice and withheld breaths, until Before Pete develops a rhythm, switches off the (photo: Phil Swainson) relevant part of his brain and clunks slowly up into the sky.The placements are good once the surface crud is cleared away and at about thirty feet he takes a rest, arms dangling, hanging from his hooked-in Terras and apologises for the delay.

I begin to realise that he won’t be climbing down now and fumble superstitiously in my sac for a helmet as odd lumps of ice begin to sneakily appear at speed from high up the gully. Phil scurries about from side to side, framing it, composing it, wide-angling and zooming it, calling for smiles and bows. Pete, with some feeling back in his arms, sets off again, almost out of my sight now, round bulges of dripping ice.

He’s completed the detached section of The Icicle and moves left to a small grotto in search of some protection more solid than the screws that slid too easily into the

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ice below. After much mumpling and hammering he gives up the search and moves back onto the ice leaving behind a tied off peg, unconsoled by our encouraging shouts of ‘Only fifteen feet to go!’

I realise now that soon I’ll be hanging up there and so begin to scheme the easiest way from A to B. I’ll find all his placements and just hook up it, no scrabbling about with manky ice for me. I’ll leave all the screws for Phil to struggle with by persuading him he’ll need them for rests being so knackered from his big week. I’ll just scamper up with the minimum of brain damage and then I’ll be able to say how easy… ....BANG!...’Shit!’ … I dive into the cave …briefly glimpse a pillar of ice in the sky settling for a moment on its fang into the slope like a Whoops!! factory chimney might just before (photo: Phil Swainson) it tilts out and thunders down.

Three successive violent blows to my helmeted head follow as the screws attached to lumps of ice rattle down the ropes amid a dense cloud of ice dust.

All you have to do is close your eyes and then when you open them again its gone.

Two ropes hanging and spinning round a roof of ice and rock fifty feet up and fifteen feet out. Pete clings to his Terras just above the dotted line. Phil gazes through his lens at the pitch, now noisily receding down the hill. A few feet to my left there is a crater about four feet deep littered with ice blocks as if a mortar bomb had landed.

‘Incoming or outgoing?’ I wonder, before deciding it must have been a bit of both.

The fracture had sprung from the tip of Pete’s right axe, run down beside him, curved under his feet and then broke away. Although he’d felt the screws pull he seemed to have some trouble believing that the whole pitch was gone. When he got his mind round this he also realised that going on was definitely too freaky as we could now see all too clearly how much water was draining behind the ice. Pete crept back to

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his peg, slotting the Terras tenderly into the placements he’d made so confidently a few minutes before. Phil and I felt helpless and silently began to heave the biggest blocks of ice from the landing strip.

Three boys from Devon piled round the corner to help dig our bodies out having heard The Bang and seen the bad news churning down the slopes. Upstairs Pete slowly made his calculations and rigged two ice screws to back up the tied-off peg then gently, very gently, floated down through the air to the snow below. We swopped amazements, reliefs and useless wisdoms as passers by did double takes and stopped on the path below.

We slowly packed our sacs with much looking and wondering and shaking of heads.

The weight of it…the mechanics…’If I’d ever for a moment, even a moment, thought there was the remotest possibility’…. We could now see exactly how the whole tonnage of the thing was hung from a sheet of ice eight inches thick and eight feet across.

So treat it gently if you should ever, because there’s a trigger there, a lever, a hidden spring. We came back down as the sun came out and clambered over the blue ice blocks beneath a rainbow. Ducks on the Loch stuck their bums into the air and we sat by the river and laughed. Up there something was missing. Tomorrow was All Fools Day. ----------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------Footnote ‘Elliott’s Downfall’ (VI, 6) was first climbed

by Dave ‘Cubby’ Cuthbertson (he of ‘County Ethics’ fame) in 1979. Of the climb he said ‘I walked into the pub (the Clachaig) and everyone turned, even Willie Elliot (who owned Achtriochtan Farm situated below the icefall and was renowned for being hard to impress) – “If Hamish [MacInnes] cannae dae it, nobody can, but you did. Will ye have a dram?”.....I was buzzing for weeks’. The route, which rarely touches down these days, became (in)famous even to non-winter climbers after American Rick Nowack’s cheeky ‘Five points of contact’ ascent in 1988.

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Media Watch Dave Hume

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week ago, with little thought for my personal safety, I casually remarked to the present Mrs H that she seemed a bit obsessed with art and painting these days. I received a counter-thrust quite out of proportion to my innocent observation. “Obsessed? Moi? If YOU are not actually GOING climbing, or PLANNING to go climbing, or THINKING or DREAMING about going climbing, then you’re READING about climbing.” In a rare moment of self-preservation, I decided not to do a quick count of art books versus climbing books in our house and present the statistical evidence (after all, this approach hasn’t worked for ‘Climate Change versus Trump’). This was a lucky decision, since at that moment a package thudded through the letter box as my latest purchase from Vertebrate Climbing announced its badly-timed arrival. “Oh, that’ll be a secret present I ordered for you, you mustn’t look.” Eat your heart out, Pinocchio.

I confess. I like reading about climbing. Biographies, autobiographies, guidebooks, even UKC and NMC Chat. And films, they’re good too.

None of these things are as good as climbing itself, but they fill some of the in-between times. The last couple of years have seen a bumper crop of books and films, so here’s a taster of a few that stood out for me in 2018.

Books I’ll cover two autobiographies – or, the ‘Nick ‘n Mick’ show.

Nick Bullock’s ‘Tides’, the Mountain Literature winner in Banff 2018, is a follow-up to ‘Echoes’, his first instalment. With the author released from his previous job as a prison officer, this is a proper modern hard man’s story. He is generous with his insights into his own and other’s motivations: “At that point in my life I didn’t do pleasant days out for fun, I climbed for success and the summit.”

It is often the case that climbers who do serious stuff on crags or mountains write in an understated way, and Bullock sure does. From the classy cover (it could almost pass as an art book) onwards, the writing is always compelling, and at times brutally honest. Here is Bullock recounting a retreat with Greg Boswell from Mt. Wilson in the Canadian Rockies when a hungry grizzly chased them down for lunch; “I could only watch as the bear bounded towards him…..screaming and shouting, Greg kicked at Ursus….. my mind insisted, the bear has got Greg, let it eat him,

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run, run as fast as you can, save yourself.” He went back though, slowly.

Even when dangerous carnivores are not around, Bullock’s economic writing style is exciting, funny, thoughtful and often therapeutic. It is also personal, as he reflects on his relationship with his Dad, his girlfriends and of course, his climbing partners, alive or recently deceased. On hearing about the death of Jules Cartwright in the Alps; “At times I hated him…he made me feel inadequate…..But I loved him like a brother…..How could you leave us, Cartwright?” In contrast, his encounter with an angry Stevie Haston at the famously loose Craig Doris is hilarious and self-deprecating. As Bullock, Hippy Desroy and Ray Wood attempt a rare repeat of two hard Haston routes, they find Stevie himself is at the crag. For the account of the ensuing confrontation Haston’s words are deliberately capitalised, neatly conveying the tenor of the one-sided ‘conversation’.

With short sentences that will match the attention span of some people I have climbed with, and short chapters with tempting titles (“how soon is now”,” balloons”, “bad shit”), all you need to do is keep up with the flashbacks to earlier events and the ongoing story of his parents. The plot shifts quickly from crag to mountain, from home to abroad. From an armchair belay I went back and forward to Wales, Scotland, Spain, the Alps, Nepal, Canada, Alaska, and Peru without a care. One of the best reads of the year for me, and the most stylishly written.

Mick Fowler’s ‘No Easy Way’, is the climbing taxman’s 3rd book of adventures.

Black and white covers are obviously this year’s fashion, and although there are other similarities to Nick Bullock’s book – a light touch on the near-fatal, self-deprecating humour, dedication and commitment to hard climbing, and an easy style – there is a different feel about his collection of stories. Whilst Bullock is now a full-time climber, Fowler throughout the book is famously employed full-time

by HMRC as a senior and specialist taxman. He’s unlikely to read your or my tax return though, so don’t think you can sneak in some kind of fellow climber reference and get sympathy. Fowler is in one way a typical climber because he has a conventional job and other commitments, like a family, and has had to work his climbing around weekends and holidays. In other important ways he is anything but typical. His purist stance, his search for unclimbed aesthetic lines on mountains under 7000m, his exploratory passion with teams of 2, and his knowledge of the lesser-known parts of the Himalaya, together make Fowler a distinctive adventure climber and mountaineer.

His book is more of a narrative with free-standing

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episodes than Bullock’s. He writes as much about getting to the objectives through the Chinese hinterlands as the climbing itself. The tales of porter rebellions, obstructive bureaucracy and local culture remind you of more traditional expedition accounts.

There are funny moments involving new dual carriageways in the middle of nowhere with locals gaily driving up and down any side they please, of manly physical intimacy in high bivvies, and the smelly details of pooing yourself at altitude. Like Bullock, Fowler is very candid about people he climbs with and knows: “I first met Victor back in the mid 1970’s when I recall commenting that I found him an irritating little squirt”.

Paul Ramsden’s super-scary 3-minute video of their epic mini-bus drive to Kishtwar Kailash in 2014 went viral with over 12 million views worldwide. Fowler’s understatement in the written account is typical - “At least all the action served to keep our driver awake”. If you’ve seen the video clip, you won’t wonder why. By contrast, there’s some old school climbing antics closer to home on the outcrop at Nottingham Castle, where Fowler encounters something worse than Bullock’s hungry grizzly – a jobsworth security guard who calls the police. Luckily it’s a sensible copper and there’s no lockup.

Given the nature of Fowler’s objectives, it is no surprise that failures are common. His attitude to failure seems on the face of it to be accepting, although frustrated by it.

Bullock claims the same, and it may be hard to say anything different publicly. I myself am an expert in this field. I wonder if Fowler and Bullock would find as much solace as I do in the Japanese concept of the ‘Nobility of Failure’ (Morris and Carpenter) where the heroic failure is revered more than the winner.

Both Nick and Mick are big on drive, focus, commitment and leading full and challenging lives, but the biggie I didn’t see coming (having missed the quote in the prologue about being invited to update his obituary) has to be Mick’s cancer diagnosis in the last chapter, now widely publicised, so no need for a spoiler alert. But what a spoiler for him. I wish him well. He seemed optimistic and remarkably relaxed about having a colectomy in a recent interview. Oh, and he’s decided to retire from work as well to allow more flexibility for future trip planning.

Both books published by Vertebrate Publishing, 2018.

Guidebooks Where would we be without our beloved guidebooks? How would we know where to go on our holidays? What else would we have done with the money we spent on them anyway? How else would we know how good we are without grade inflation in the latest edition?

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New guidebooks have been coming out thick and fast in 2018. Here’s a few of them: Rockfax brought out their alternative Kalymnos guide this year and met some antagonism on UKC forums, where anti-Rockfax sentiment rears its head from time to time, with a few UKCers accusing them of piracy, plagiarism, commercial opportunism, and crimes against local interests. I’m saying nothing on this, except that they should have had, AS THE COVER, NOT TUCKED AWAY ON p.410, Trevor’s photo of Gary on our day out together on ‘Wings for Life’, instead of that Crystal Cave poser. I mean, look at the comparison, surely it’s a no-brainer? (When interviewed by me about his elevation to international stardom, Gary’s comment was “I wish I hadn’t worn my old top.” Such typical fashion awareness, such typical parsimony.)

Rockfax, 2018, £34.95, 3000 routes In the world of publishing, timing is everything. A couple of months behind Rockfax, Aris Theodoropoulos brought out his latest revision to the guide we have all known and loved and spent a fortune on for previous editions. It contains 3400 routes, of which 4500 were put up last year by Gary Gibson. I have not seen this guidebook, and at £44.95, probably won’t unless I find one unattended at the base of Belgian Chocolates.

Aris Theodoropoulos 2018, £44.95, 3400 routes Rockfax have also produced their first full guide to ‘North Wales Slate’ by Mark Reeves. I haven’t seen it so have no idea if it is any good.

Rockfax 2018, £29.95, 1000 routes My El Chorro guide dates from 2008 and the latest Rockfax update is hot off the press. A lot of development has taken place, and the new edition adds 10

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new crags, and loses 2 (Archidona and Loja) from the old guide. Climbing in the Gorge itself is now banned. A flush of accommodation adverts reflects the increased traffic to the area. There are some 580 more routes, with many of the main crags almost doubling their offer, including some big multi-pitch outings. A new crag near Malaga might be handy for airport days, but bizarrely, Mijas has many more routes and rumoured to be cleaned up. If you

like pigeon poo and beercan-littered ravines overlooked by gawping tourist, go there. The Camino del Rey, now the Caminito del Rey, has been sanitized, polished and balustraded for adventurous tourists, so it’s not surprising that Rockfax rejected my earlier offer of the perfect cover photo for the new edition. Judge for yourselves.

Rockfax, 2018, £32.95, 1584 routes Another guide that has had a 10-year makeover is ‘Falaises de Corse’. In French and English, it covers 77 crags across the island. Corsica has been on my shortlist, now a full-blown longlist, for years, and time’s running out. There are at least as many action photos as crag photos, and the page layout is often cramped and cluttered, but the maps and crag information are clear enough.

There is an associated app, of course.

Vertical Life, 2018, £34.95, 2400 routes One more of this year’s Vertical Life guides in French and English covers the classy, and in parts, glassy, ‘Ceuse’, scene of many new hard climbs. “Most of the pitches at Ceuse are three star.” So said Mark Glaister in a UKC article about the crag. With that kind of hyperbole how could any self-respecting wad not have

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been there? Anyway, now there’s a definitive guide to this prominent hilltop crag, so you have to go, even if it’s again.

Vertical Life, 2018, £26.95, 600 routes In sunny Spain, and less than an hour from Valencia, is ‘Chulilla’, allegedly a good winter destination. There was a local guidebook in the past, but this brings it up to date in a bigger volume of colour topos, in English and Spanish, by Pedro Pons. I won’t be buying it because it doesn’t sound like a good place for bumblies. A number of NMC members might be interested though.

Pedro Pons, 2018, £23.95. 1100 routes Closer to home (not necessarily in travel time), the SMC guide to the Outer Hebrides came out this year and covers sea cliff climbing, mountain routes and roadside crags in Lewis, Harris and Barra, the uninhabited islands of Sandray, Pabby, Mingulay and Berneray, as well as the remote cliffs of St. Kilda. Adventurous trad, sporting but without the sport climbs, there is a dedicated group of NMC devotees who will make very good use of this, and probably already own it. Indeed Tim Catterall’s new routes on Mingulay feature prominently as does one of his photographs.

Scottish Mountaineering Club, 2018, £29.95, 2500 routes A fair few NMC members have also enjoyed climbing in Morocco and a new guide to the granite that lies to the south of Tafraout was published in November 2018 by Vertical Life. I’m not able to say whether there is any overlap at all with the Southern Volume of the Oxford Alpine Club 2-part guide. In fact I’m not able to say anything about Morocco at all, because I

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Tim Catterall & Will Tapsfield on ‘Down to Mingulay with a Bump’ (VS 4c), Skippisdale Wall, Mingulay (one of Tim’s many new routes) (photo: John Spencer)

haven’t been. Yet. Vertical Life, 2018, £27.95, 250 routes Antalya, Turkey. This is billed as the definitive guidebook for Antalya describing all the sport climbing to be found at Geyikbayiri, Olympos, Citdibi and Kaputas. Citdibi has been likened to a “mini Ceuse” due to its concentrated number of hard routes.

Also included is information about the deep water soloing to be found at Olympos.

Details on Climb Europe website. £29.95, 1200 routes Finally, to finish this 2018 guidebook round-up, as keen boulderers make longer and longer trips in search of ‘Le Bloc Parfait’, how about Rocklands in South Africa? This guide, the most expensive of the lot, boasts a very precise 2893 problems, and an inspiring cover photo.

Scott Noy, 2018

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£49.95, 2893 problems

This year’s guidebooks show a few trends: everything’s moving upwards, prices, book sizes, grades and distances to travel. Higher prices are notable – Aris’s ‘Kalymnos’ at nearly £45 and ‘Rocklands Bouldering’ at nearly £50 take your breath away. Many also come with apps to try your patience in blazing sunshine on small screens.

When a publisher’s blurb includes the number of routes, it is tempting, on a slow day, to work out the unit price you pay - never mind the quality, feel the price per route. The average is under 2p per route, although its 4.5p at Ceuse and 11.5p in Tafraout. However, when you take into account the routes you can actually climb, the price of doable routes gives you a shock, and when you add in how much your whole trip costs then you just don’t want to know. My September trip to France worked out at about £20 per route, and I failed on some of them, with no refunds. I won’t complain about the cost of guidebooks again – ‘tis but a drop in the climbing trip ocean. Quite a few of the above are updated editions to keep up with new routing – sadly for me, mostly of ever harder routes.

What of 2019? Look out for ‘Northern Rock’, the Wired Guide Co-operative selective guide with whom key NMC members have been working to make sure the Coonty is properly presented. ‘Lake District Bouldering’ from Vertebrate Publishing is due in Spring 2019. Rockfax are preparing for an updated ‘Costa Blanca’ but this may be for 2020. No doubt there are more in the pipeline. Read, or better still write, this article for us all next year.

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Now for a word on other climbing media.

Climbing Films How we watch climbing films continues to change. On the journey from VHS to DVD, the current trend has been towards downloads, small budget films online, binges of short films at festivals and local venues, and lately big screen showings.

Last year Yosemite gave us the long form ‘movie theater’ offerings of ‘Valley Uprising’ and ‘Alone on the Wall’, and then came ‘Dawn Wall’, now doing the rounds of cinemas. ‘Free Solo’, a full-length film with Alex Honnold doing what he does, keeps up the Yosemite profile and draws in non-climbers, so prepare to be asked more daft questions by them. This is a spectacular climbing film and may well ruin it for every film-maker for years to come. Honnold is a target for amateur psycho-therapists – he’s introverted, and according to the sleuths, is autistic, has OCD, is misogynistic, he’s suffering from childhood repression, is socially dysfunctional, definitely weird, and is a self-confessed geek. One thing he does not have is Attention Deficit Disorder, because he didn’t fall off. In soloing ‘Freerider’ on El Cap (5.12d) he has Capped the climbing world with one of the greatest feats of rock-climbing ever, and the film takes you with him all the way. I wasn’t alone in the cinema thinking I was going to fall off dozens of times. OK, he practised for years. SO WHAT? He’s soloing pitches up to 8a with no margin for error. The look on his face when he gets through the Boulder Problem crux shows he’s well chuffed, and not so weird after all. Its hard to imagine what will be his next big challenge, or anyone else’s for that matter. This is the one climbing film to rule them all. Mindblowing.

‘Brit Rock’ came to Newcastle Climbing Centre on December 1st and I made a special effort to come into the Toon on a Saturday night to fulfil my obligations to you for this article. My first surprise was how busy and noisy the Broad Chare can be. My next surprise was that the first film, ‘The Brazilian Line’, was not at all what I had expected from the title. Twid Turner, Steve Long, James Taylor and Angus Kille made an attempt on a new line, ground up, on the granite monolith of Pedra Baiana in Brazil.

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A good insight into the effort of bolting a new multi-pitch on exfoliating rock. They nearly finished it too before their holidays were over. Mick Fowler knows how this can happen.

Scottish prodigy Will Bosi redpointing ‘Rainshadow’ at Malham demonstrated the commitment needed to work a 9a (I took prodigious notes), and there was a stark contrast between his calm commentary at the base of the route and some spectacular torrents of swearing at peeling off time. At the start of the film, we see Will being spotted by his Mum while bouldering, and she seemed pretty psyched for him, but she was notably absent from his Malham attempt. Bet she knows how well he can swear now. I noticed that some parents who had brought their young ones to the evening show were squirming a bit at the verbal fireworks. There’s nothing to beat a virtuoso role model, is there? I’m sure the kids knew all the words anyway, as their Dads brought them by car.

The film of Lakes-based Anna Taylor, who is about the same age as Will, shows her Mum belaying her, with some trepidation, on an ambitious new arête at Tilberthwaite Quarry. The main story here was that having put all the work into this project, with Neil Gresham as the safe cuddly hands spotter in attendance, someone else came along and nicked the route. The story got aired on UKC and some unsavoury details came out that were not exposed in the film, including who nicked it. Look up ‘Can anyone steal a trad project?’ on the forums search and find Anna Taylor’s story about 2/3 of the way down. This particular film made me realise that you can never have enough bouldering pads. Footage of Anna on slab horror shows in Armathwaite and the Roaches had my little palms sweating, and I LOVE slabs.

(Preferably with actual holds).

A remarkably short film of Hazel Findlay running and soloing in North Wales was set to an environment-themed poem with a final message on world plastic pollution.

The clips of Hazel’s solos were a bit too quick for me to clock, as it’s a while since I’ve been to Llanberis Pass, but I think they included either ‘Cemetery Gates’ or ‘Ivy Sepulchre’ on Dinas Cromlech and either ‘West Rib’ or ‘Western Slabs’ on Dinas Mot. I didn’t recognise her route in the Quarries as I’ve only ever done a couple of routes here, but it might have been ‘California Arête’. Whatever, she cruised up them all and did a problem on the Cromlech Boulders and ran in between as if it was no effort at all, all in the cause of plastic awareness. Good on her.

The longest feature was ‘Blood Moon’, the story of another ground up, new route on exfoliating granite, this time on Tsaranomo in Madagascar. A good film, with an epic story and epic finale. The first epic was Alan Carne’s, who broke his lower leg while

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climbing and endured a long painful carry back to civilisation. Robbie Phillips and Calum Cunningham later continued to make a complete free ascent of the 700m line they had bolted, at times in darkness, with pitches up to 8a+. It was impressive gnarly stuff, with portaledges, skyhooks, birdbeaks and fragile rock thrown in.

What surprised me was how many other routes already exist on this remote lump.

The final offer was a 10 minute trailer for a forthcoming feature by Dave McLeod.

Titled ‘Undiscovered’, it is basically Lochaber-based Dave saying ‘I’ve got access to more undiscovered rock than you can shake a stick at’. OK Dave, you win.

‘Brit Rock 2018’ was not bad, quite interesting, but apart from a few great climbing moments and some outstanding Bosi profanity, was a fairly average collection.

Coming up is the ‘2018 Reel Rock’ tour including films on Adam Ondra, Wadi Rum, speed climbing and Antarctica. I haven’t had the pleasure of these yet.

Improved filming technology and a greater use of drones, allied with the prospect of the more lucrative big screen venues and downloads, and the increasing supply of celebrity climbers and up and coming stars going to new and exotic locations, should all ensure a healthy crop for 2019. Will we have ‘Brexit Rock’ next year?

Will the new and exotic locations have to be UK-based esoterica? The County had better brace itself.

Finally, a word on the Online Climbing World UKC.com – my regular fix.....I often have a quick scan of the UKC forums page while I’m browsing for Art Books to use as brownie points against the next climbing trip. I am amused by the weird requests for help and advice people make, from ‘Best laces for Lake District scrambling?’ to ‘When should I retire my underpants?’ ‘Destinations’ is my favourite because it is genuinely helpful, as are the replies to injury questions and experiences of male surgical procedures. That’s an age thing BTW. Which reminds me, FFIW, - UKC is my main source of learning about acronyms - WTF? I have long since given up reading the ‘Pub’ and ‘Off Belay’ forums FYI – they are nothing but platforms for ranters and abusive d***heads. Any forum can produce plenty of idiots I disagree with – by that I mean people who are simply wrong, IMNSHO. Many posters have more time on their hands than me, (even at their workplaces) to tap-tap-tap their vitriol, their insecurities, waving their willies, abusing each other, people who don’t know when to stop….OMG! I’ve just found myself ranting. Oh yes, the endless grade debates, and the technical arguments that end up with mathematical formulas to prove a point about how likely you are to die if your dyneema sling has 3 knots in it when

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the ambient temperature is below 10° and the moon is in Uranus. Then there are the easy competitions for nice new gear that I enter but never win, despite much shorter odds than the lottery. IIRC the people who win never even put up a profile, so I can’t abuse them from afar. I like the Friday Night videos, photos and the news. But there are still too many a***holes on those forums who spout their opinions as if they were facts. (Bet I know how they voted too. LOL!) Unsurprisingly, NMC Chat and County Psyche are a relief from all that – our own forums don’t have silly annoying prats posting nonsense, because we are intelligent and civilised. But NMC Chat makes me feel guilty that I haven’t been to a Wednesday evening meet for ages. FWIW, I need my Horlicks and early bed, and being unemployed like Nick Bullock I can go climbing during the daytime anyway.

LOL! On the down side though, I’d now struggle to match many of the new names to faces, although my few remaining climbing mates think that’s for the best all round. NMC Chat is much better for the blood pressure than UKC. EOD. Other climbing-related websites are available – The Grough, the BMC, the FRCC, Supertopo, Climb-online, and plenty of blogs, but I do still have a busy life beyond cyberspace and can’t review them all. So sorry.

HTH! HF!

The author climbing Baume Rousse, Haute Provence, Sept 2018 147

A Day Year in the Life - 2018 Peter Flegg March, Costa Blanca raham Williams and I spent a week at the beginning of March climbing in Alicante.

Poor flight times meant we only had five real days climbing available, but even on the wet day we still managed four climbs before getting rained off.

G

We twice got to the new sectors at ‘La Moleta’, Sella – they are located at the far right-hand end as you face the cliff. The routes there have been developed by a British man who lives in a small pink house near the base of that area. We particularly liked the sectors: ‘New Year’s Day’, which starts immediately right of where ‘Sector Final’ in the current Costa Blanca guide finishes, and the routes at the right hand end of ‘Doggy Guantanamo’.

(Note: PDF of these new sectors available at http://costa-vertical.com/wp-content/ uploads/Sella-La-Moleta-Topo.pdf)

We also enjoyed doing the routes at Guadalest – Castillo, although it is a longish drive to get there and it is best not to go too early on cold days as it is 600m above sea level. Best were ‘Carabassa t’han donat’, 5+ and ‘Sang trait’, 6a.

We also spent time at Sector Guadalest - PenToix Far Oeste, Costa Blanca; climber on ya l’Alcalà and enjoyed ‘La lluna de Sant Joan’ ‘Lobo’, 6a which was good for the grade at 5, but in general, thought the rock there was a bit suspect especially after rockfall caused by climbers on a route 3 or 4 climbs to the right of us.

September, Kalymnos Howard Adamson & I along with our respective partners, Raffs and Liz, flew to Kalymnos in late September. By coincidence, brothers Tommy and Bob Smith were on the same flights there and back. Apart from a couple of lost days due to a bad cold that I caught at the start, we climbed most days. Bob Smith (named the ‘climbing machine’ by Tommy) also had a bit of flu, so we think someone on the flight was spreading germs. Amazingly, considering the number of times I have now been to Kalymnos, Howard and I climbed only at crags that I had never visited before.

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Highlights for us were: Arginonta Valley, Middle Wall – lots of good climbs but far too many people on the day we were there. Ghost Kitchen, Left Wall - lots of people but we always got the climb we were looking for – although it gets hot when the sun comes round. Symplegades was a surprise, not so many people and some real 3-star classics on the Main Wall: ‘Climber’s Nest’ (6a) and ‘Phineas’ (5c). But another route, Valery & Thomas’5b+ on East Face, was odd for a sports route with bridging and chimneying moves, we both really enjoyed it.

Howard had just returned from climbing in France before heading to Kalymnos – in France he had bought a 30cm long semi-flexible (ie mainly stiff) ‘Panic Clip’ (from Kong), it turned out to be quite useful on some routes where bolts are Symplegades Main Wall, Kalymnos; climbawkwardly placed so that we couldn’t er on ‘Phineas’, 5c reach them. The Panic Clip allows you to reach up or over to clip a ring bolt, definitely a useful new piece of equipment.

(Note: Two versions of the Panic Clip are ‘The Blue Light’ by Beal, £22.99 from Needlesports or the Kong Panic Quickdraw, £24.99 from Decathlon.)

October, London Anti-Brexit Demo On Saturday 20 October Liz & I along with 8 other NMC members and partners (Brexiters would no doubt call them ‘metropolitan elites’) took the train down to King’s Cross in order to join the Anti-Brexit Demonstration/People’s Vote March which was estimated to have upwards of 670,000 marchers. We had arrived on different trains and meeting up proved difficult. With so many people in the streets the organisers forced people down different side streets to avoid overcrowding.

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Whether the march achieved anything is yet to be determined... by our MPs or another referendum, but unfortunately both the government and the opposition seem convinced that Brexit is necessary.

November, New Zealand As part of a six week trip to the Antipodes Liz and I spent a week driving round the South Island of New Zealand. While driving north on the remote west coast road, I suddenly realised I knew some people on the island – Adrian Heath and Martina Mederiova! Adrian and Martina had been active NMC members a few years back, had departed Newcastle to marry in Martina’s home land of Slovakia (after a trial ceremony on Mingulay!) and they later moved to New Zealand, where Adrian comes from. I knew that NMC’s Lewis Preston, who had crossed the Tatra mountains from Poland on foot to attend their wedding, had remained in touch with them. Lewis soon provided me, by text message, with Adrian’s NZ mobile number.

We arranged to meet up on our penultimate day in NZ but I wasn’t prepared for the major traffic hold-ups and lost time on the east coast due to road work needed after the recent earthquakes Adrian, Martina and Obie in Kaikoura and Christchurch.

Hence it was finally Saturday morning that we drove round Lyttleton Harbour, just south of Christchurch, to their house in Diamond Harbour.

Adrian and Martina are now parents of Obie, a little boy at just under 2 years. During his free time Adrian is doing major renovation work on their house, which has great 150

views of the sea. Martina is back at work after maternity leave as a paramedic.

They said they would love to get more visits from their NMC friends – so now you have an excuse to plan a trip to New Zealand!

December, Sydney I had taken my climb boots and harness with me on the trip to Australia and NZ but wasn’t sure whether I would actually get the chance to climb in Australia again.

Luckily mate John Shaw, originally from Nottingham, got in touch and we found a couple of free hours together on the last Sunday I was in Sydney. We climbed at Narabeen Slabs, located off a fast curving road in northern Sydney – John lived nearby and had climbed there plenty of times but still we initially had problems locating the walk-in track in the dense bush at the side of the road.

We only managed to complete two routes in the short time we had at the crag. The first route we attempted ‘Manic’, Australian grade 17, had the first bolt about 4m off the ground and neither of us could reach the hold necessary to clip that bolt so we backed off. The neighbouring grade 16 ‘Ag Science’ was even harder and far more dangerous with large blocks below it. So we moved further along and finally managed to reach the top of ‘Common Origin’ (16), which had a series of holdless balancing moves up a long narrow ramp just wide enough for your toes in order to reach a large scoop from where you could clip the first bolt, the next move was even harder: work your feet high to get one foot in the scoop and then The author placing the cam before the overyou could reach another good hold. hanging finale on ‘Moscoviet Mosquito’ (18), The final climb was ‘Moscoviet MosNarabeen Slabs, Sydney quito’ (18) and possibly the easiest of the lot that we attempted. It was well protected in typical Aussie style: i.e. they place bolts only where necessary, so that most routes are a mix of bolts and trade gear. The first moves had bolts and then a cam was required before another bolt was used to protect the overhanging finish.

(Note: Australian grades 16/17/18 equate to about VS to HVS)

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Have you sent us a ‘postcard’ yet?

EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT, WHATEVER THEIR LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE AND ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO COUNTY CLIMBER ARE WELCOME!

Whether about rock-climbing (trad or sport), bouldering, winter climbing or hill-walking, or indeed anything to do with ‘the great outdoors’, especially Northumberland. Contributions from new members are particularly welcome.

It doesn’t have to be a ‘story’ either, so for example a report about a visit to a new location, or a new take on an old one would fit the bill. Reviews of guides or books, films or festivals are welcome. From time to time people submit mainly photographs (see below) accompanied by only the briefest of text, and these can be published as a ‘photo-essay’. And don’t limit yourself to prose in responding to your inner muse - poems are also welcome.

The Editor would be happy to discuss ideas for articles, comment on rough drafts, or work with you to produce the finished article. You could even send us a real postcard if you wanted!

Regarding photographs, please send as high a resolution as possible, although photos, depending on format, may need to be resized. If you are using other peoples’ photos in your article, please ensure you have sought permission.

Please contact the Editor at and/or send submission to: john.spencer@ncl.ac.uk 152

Iain Small in total control on ‘Charlotte’s Dream’ (E5 6b), Back Bowden, belayed by Niall McNair (photo: Russell Lovett)

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