LLAIS Y MYNYDD
ISSUE 10
1997 Peaks, Seniors Charter, Mr Angry, Scottish Trip, Matterhorn,
Friday/Saturday 30/31st May 1997
Night crossings are proving popular with the lads, there is a magic about nights spent crossing the mountains with their often spectacular dawns and of course there's always Breakfast!!
The crossers this year consisted of John Moriarty, Steve, Garri, Kevin, Mick, Iolo and Ian. We left Yr Wyddfa about 3.20am on Friday, the weather was very hot and humid and we sweated pints. By the time we'd finished at Foel Fras about 8.45am on Saturday we were all agreed that it had been a very draining crossing. Our sacs were heavy with all the liquid that we had to carry, and then it was not enough! Even the night was warm and humid and we sweated more pints!
It's at times like these that you really appreciate your support partners without whom we could not have made it, so many thanks to Dick, Trevor, Berwyn, Dafydd, Dave Iddon, Margaret, , Barrie Omoth and Andrew. We were glad to see Dick, Trevor and Berwyn in Nant Peris and gratefully sated our thirst and filled up with grub (Thanks Rhiannon). Trev comforted us with the words that 'Though he would be supping in the pub later, his heart would be with us on the tops'!!
The ascent of Elidir Fawr set the pattern for the crossing. It was unbearably hot and the pull up was relentless, it was becoming obvious that liquid or the lack of it was going to be our problem. After John's impeccable lead off Tryfan we drank the lake dry at Ogwen before Dave's chilli propelled us up Pen yr Ole Wen! We were breaking the back of it and the end was in sight. Another stop for Omoth's French onion soup at Foel Grach and all seven of the starters celebrated at Foel Fras. Special congratulations go to Kevin and Mick on their first crossing - we hope the first of many. Kevin's achievement made all the more remarkable when you consider he had never set foot on a mountain until 22nd March 1997.
Now it was down for breakfast and what a feast. Thanks again Myfanwy foe opening your home to us all. With the crossers and the support Myfanwy and Nancy catered for 14 hungry souls, lashings of tea, orange juice, cereal and a cooked breakfast to die for - thanks girls your a couple of diamonds.
It was now time to retire to the Vic to celebrate our success. As the pints flowed the tales got taller and the hardships of the previous 24 hours diminished with each swig. By about 6.00pm as our eyes were closing, we decided it was a piece of cake really!!
Ian.
P.S. Thanks Kevin for donating the bacon, sausage and black pudding - handy having a mountaineering butcher in the Club!
It has been brought to the attention of your Roving Reporter 'Snoop Sned' that about 1/3rd of the Club's membership are in the over 50's bracket. In the light of this revelation it is about time we laid down some ground rules - so listen up you young, wet behind the ears whippersnappers!!
THE SENIORS CHARTER RULES OK!!
1. To qualify as a Senior a member must be 50 years of age or over. This could cause confusion as most of the Seniors look a damn sight better than the Juniors.
2. All Juniors must obey the Charter Rules. Any Juniors with attitude will be dealt with.
3. The Senior members shall be, in general, on the whole, by and large peace loving & tolerant towards their younger charges, though not necessarily so. In fact they can kick the s**t out of them wherever required.
4. On mountain days Seniors are entitled to have their sacks carried for them for up to a 3 hours period.
5. At lunch & break stops Seniors get first pick of the best seating positions.
6. Each Junior member to carry extra rations for the use of Seniors who may need to keep their strength up. Suggest this takes the form of chocy bars, hot coffee and Brandy.
7. Any Tradesmen or Business people in the Junior ranks must offer their services & goods to Seniors at greatly discounted prices. This includes slate roofers, flat roofers, butchers, publicans & clothing manufactures.
8 On overnight away days or weekends Seniors get first pick of best rooms, best beds & and best everything.
9. When in rounds at the pub Junior members should deem it a point of honour to see that no Senior approaches the bar. The phrase "Your money's no good here" is perfectly acceptable. Should any Senior be seen attempting to go to the bar a gentle restraining hand on the shoulder & a fresh pint placed in front of him or her will suffice.
10 As the onus will mainly be on the local Juniors to pander to the Senior's needs, it is expected that our non-local Juniors be extra attentive to the Seniors when visiting - i.e. come laden with gifts!
© I.S 1997.
I was listening to a couple of Rambler types having a conversation in my local the other day when they mentioned that the clag was low - the what was low? I hear you ask. Clag of course, in RAF speak, stands for Cloud Low Aircraft Grounded, so in reality there is no such thing on the mountains as clag. "It's very claggy today" - the very word conjures up an image of a sweaty walker toiling up a 45 degree grassy slope in summer, or of a rain soaked mountaineer fighting for breath in a hot and humid mountain bothy, or it could be used to describe someone trying to brush a pet dog's coat after just giving it a bath. Crag - yes, drag - yes, slag even - yes, but clag? - No! Whenever I hear that word mentioned I get a funny twitch in my right shoulder and my hand moves uncontrollably towards my sturdy stick - Grrrrrr!!
Eddie, John Armstrong, Huw and myself set off on our second visit to Glencoe during that hot spell at the end of May. John having been many times was made party leader - plus he could read the map.
Early morning start Sunday, Huw filled up with aviation fuel at Valley for our flight, arrived at Glencoe midday. We'll just have a short walk as a 'break in' said John, five and a half hours later with Buachaille Etive Mor under our belts we arrived at our B+B!!
Day 2: Bidean Nam Bian, Stob Coire an Lachan.
Day 3: Beinn a' Bheithir.
Day 4: Ring of Steall.
Day 5: Ben Narnain (Arochar)
Returning to the car for about 4.00pm and our return to Ynys Mon diesel fuel was the only thing available in Scotland, so Co-pilots could be used for part of the flight whilst the Captain slept in the back.
A memorable five days. I'm told we climbed 20,000ft and took in a few Munros - look out Delyth, I'm after your record.
Howard.
The path became steeper as we passed Hermettji and we settled down t a more relaxed pace as we climbed the more zig - zag path that we had come to find in Alpine regions. About dinner time we arrived at the cable car station at Schwarsee, here we sat down on the cafe patio and ordered a beer, the sun was out and lots of people were milling around, we were soon eager to be moving again, slowly up traversing past a small mountain lake at 2552m. Pushing on up what is known as the Hirli, the most lower part of the Hornli ridge, still on footpaths, we could see the huts now in the distance - one being the Hornli hut the other the so called Belvedere Hotel. Finally up the last steep section of path and we emerged at the rocky plateau at 3260m, we had made it at last to the Hornli hut, here people were coming and going in the shadows of the Matterhorn.
Looking up at the higher reaches of the Matterhorn that you could only see by squinting your eyes from the sun, climbers could be seen climbing down even at 15.00 hours, we were later to find out that these climbers were probably the first up and down that day with an endless procession still behind somewhere high in the clouds that were now hiding the upper shoulder and snowy roof of the Matterhorn summit.
At about 17.30 we began to worry about our guide Dick Peart, would he arrive? Why was he late? But not to worry, Michel spotted him trudging up and he arrived at 18.30. We booked in at the Belvedere Hotel which was now nearly full, you could always tell when the weather was good for making an ascent of the ridge by the number of climbers in the hut, in bad weather they would never bother walking up to climb where only fools would venture.
Dinner was had in a joyful atmosphere, some king of German bierwurst meaty meal was forced down with a couple of beers. The night wore on rapidly and it was soon time for bed, Dick said we could stop in bed until 05.00 because we were climbing mostly rock. Well eventually I must have dropped off to sleep because I was woken by Michel in his broken English voice whispering "Wake up my friend, wake up". We didn't stand on ceremony that morning, one quick cup of coffee and a quick nibble of bread and jam, bags packed and we were eager to go. We stepped out into the sharp cold air. It was about 05.45, it was still dark and we put on headtorches, a rock footpath was followed for some minutes, we were still unroped as yet, eventually we came across a small rock face of about 40ft high, a traffic jam of sorts appeared. It was a dog leg climb, an upward moving traverse to the left with a couple of foot holes on ice with a fixed rope hanging from the right-hand side to help you pull clear to the top. I remember thinking even at this early stage in the climb, that even falling from this section of some 40ft would have some nasty consequences, as we were still unroped. Next came a winding footpath that traversed the bottom of the mountain, we stopped to tie on the rope, Dick was to lead, Michel to second and I came up behind. We started climbing up what seemed in my torch light something like steep loose crumbling shale, but as we pushed upwards it became firmer, we could make out the main ridge to our right-hand side in the growing daylight.
After about 40 minutes we were able to walk again on a kind of path that passed a cave set into the wall on our right. This path brought us onto a subsidiary ridge that edged it's way upwards towards the Hornli Ridge above. It was daylight by now but there was no spectacular sunrise, just a yellow glow on the horizon. Climbing on up we came across a rocky slab section about 3 pitches in length graded about diff+ which brought us up to the halfway point, the so called Solvay Hut, an emergency hut built of wood with about four bunk beds and a table and chair to sit at. We sat down and had a bite to eat, it was about 09. 00 and our spirits were high, but Dick made me wonder when he kept studying a piece of paper, as if checking the route, time to move again, we could see climbers high above us. To the back of the hut lay a steep rock face of some twenty feet, leading onto the ridge proper, this we found was easier with better holds on its left-hand side, metal stanchions were implanted into the rock to assist belaying. A sharp turn to the right and up a loose rocky chimney brought us onto a more slab like angle of rock rising upwards to what is known as the Shoulder of the Matterhorn. We climbed on up to the shoulder passing plenty of metal stanchions for belaying. Here we crossed a small 'Cheval' with snow on the right-hand side, this was the North Face.
The next section was the steepest on the mountain, about 8 pitches of fixed rope to help you climb this near vertical rock face. Every six to eight feet we came across ledges where you could at least rest with enough room to stand. The only problem on this section was slower climbers moving upwards and climbers moving downwards.
We managed to edge up to near the snow roof, here we hung around in the cold wind for thirty minutes. A strong cold wind hammered into us. It was the first time I had ever seen 'snot' frozen solid. Dick gave us an option to go down but we both replied "no", we pushed on and in five minutes we were stood on a large snow ledge which came as a relief, instead of putting crampons on we climbed up the snowy steps for about 300ft to the summit, the time was 13.00 hours.
It was Wednesday 26th August 1981 and we had actually climbed the Matterhorn, we took turns to pose on the summit, taking care not to step too far out on the summit's ice cornice, to our right we could see the cross of the Italian summit. It was still unnerving walking about without crampons on so the next job was to make ourselves comfortable behind a rock and out of the wind, here we fitted crampons on in the afternoon sun.
It was quite pleasant as we relaxed and drank some coffee out of Dick's flask. The only problem with the Matterhorn is once you have climbed up you have to get down. Well, it came as a shock when Dick shouted out that I was to lead down the ridge, the time came to move off.
I led down the snowy roof, at least I was now wearing crampons and had no problems, we had to wait again at the snowy ledge, but once on the fixed ropes we slid down the thick hawsers, just for safety we tied slings round the fixed rope. The fears of the descent had faded with the hard work as I led down each pitch fixing on slings to the rocks and metal stanchions, once a sling was placed on the krab attached to the climbing rope we could all move at once. It was about 15.00 hours when we reached the Solvay hut, the rest was welcome.
Moving again down the slabs then onto the more crumbly rocky ridge, we had to be careful not to dislodge any boulders onto climbers below, the time began to drag and we were all very tired. By 18.00 hours we were still on the lower ridge, it was becoming dark, before long we had found the footpath which traversed to the 40 foot drop, this we hardly noticed after what we had just climbed. It was good to be down in one piece, by 19.3 hours we were sat in the hut having a beer. Dick was staying in the hut that night but Michel and I had a train to catch the next day at 11.00 hours, so we decided to walk back down the track in darkness. We thanked Dick for the successful ascent and I gave him my last three cigarettes before departing. It was four hours later when we walked into Zermatt, by 02.00 hours we were in bed, tucked up in our barn with the chickens pleased to see us safely back.
Trevor Atkinson.