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Moderators: BenOliver, Club Elder, annya, Sophie, maddi, Hannah, Juvenile James, Oli, roblee
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| PerrinT [ Roof jammin'... Yeah! ] |
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Retired Committee Registered Member #197 Joined: Fri Oct 13 2006, 02:51PMPosts: 1801 | Feel free to add any other remarkable tales of adventure, ineptidue and stupidity you think of from the gloriously sunny week in Wales.... Tale One - Pulpit route: Once upon a time not so long ago there was a week in north wales in which it was actually sunny! On one of the days that week Kylie and I were following Matt and Heather up Pulpit route (V Diff?, 4 pitches) on the side of Tryfan. The route started with Kylie taking the lead on a pleasantly easy first pitch unfortunately however even at the first pitch there were signs of iminent adventure as Kylie managed to stray dramatically off- route whilst providing herself a lovely long run-out (which did at least mean that I could second the route up its orriginal course). We stopped and switched leads at the first convienient looking belay disapointed to find that the gingernuts promised us had not been left by Matt and Heather. Not long into my first lead of the route I came accross a substantial ledge and some very inviting biscuits - it became clear that we hadnt reached the first belay point when we swapped... still the next pitch couldnt be too long and i decided to just keep going. once round the back of the pulpit and starting up the slabby face with a not too friendly holy bush i began to realise that i had been a bit too eager with my gear placements and was now lacking many of the more useful components of our not-very-tom-like- rack. Just at the line of the bush the route switched place between two slabs with a minimally overhanging move between the two and already a moderate runout below - this prompted me to place a very solid no. 5 nut and having performed the move i looked down to be scary witless when I noticed the extender quickdraw looking very odd as though a fall would unclip the sling - on top of the the lovely pulpit boulder from earlier was now causing substanitial drag... with a hasty downclimb and a quickening of the heart I replaced the quickdraw and double / tripple checked it before once again proceeding. I was then leading my way upto and through the lovely looking square trough beyond which was the beckoning belay stance but to my misfortune my rack was now seriously deminished so I was working with runouts longer than I'd normally expect to see (though I do admit here to a slight bias due to the fact I enjoy placing gear every one to two feet!) I did very fashionably at this point manage to find a solid thread through which I could feed and clip both ends of a wire nut which pleased me greatly! Just as I was moving through the trough I received a most worrying radio message to the effect that I only had 2m of rope left and I hadn't reached the belay point, to this end and after conversing with matt who was in sight ahead I set myself up in a most uncomfortable and arkward belay right in the middle of the trough. Unfortunately when Kylie had finally managed to free the stuck no. 5 and reach me it transpired that infact she had said 10m not 2m and I would have made the belay point with ease! Putting this behind us Kylie began the short lead to the belay stance without swapping gear due to the shortness of the pitch, once there she set up a temporary belay given the odd assortment of gear available and I followed her up then continuing with another very short lead to the foot of the third pitch (a short way behind - essentially a scamble but with a desire for protection) however again due to not being very far we didn't spot the need to swap gear and so once in possition I found myself lacking all the necessary gear to set up a belay - with an extended quickdraw round a tree and a bit of clovehitching I rigged a very temporary belay for kylie to meet me and help set up the belay properly (which involved a bit of climbing and downclimbing in a confined space to reach placements). Once finally set up kylie led the third (or by this time fifth) pitch with a most exhilerating overhanging finish over the edge of a very large drop but no unnecessary or fafftastic mistakes other than to perform a perplexing piroette, on following her the very well choosen single shoulder ropebag prooved most inconvenient for the finishing move and many feet got stuck (in the same places as Kylie's had before hand - I just failed to take heed!) The final pitch lead by myself and described in the book by a dyslexic or at least someone with no sense for left and right turned out to be a wonderfully easy and event free pitch finishing at the top of Little Gully which was bearing tat and looking prime of an abseil or perhaps possible as a down scramble. The book however had other ideas as it describes to us an easy descent so we ignored the tat laden scramble and headed up tryfan and off to the right looking for an easier descent which Kylie thought she had spied. On reaching the next gully (our planned descent) we discovered another tat filled descent but the route looked a fair bit more iffy in terms of downscrambling so unpacking our nicely put away ropes and tieing them together we then threaded the krab on the tat, coiled the ropes and threw them down the gulley. It was an almost immediate disaster as the ropes had not fallen very far before stopping on a ledge below and one of the ends was sitting in a tree above! Despite this I affixed myself to the rope and began the descent, pulling the rope out of the tree was fairly straight forward but re-throwing the ropes only ended in another ledge a little further down, the game proceeded in a series of short descents between sharp drops and wet ledges until I reached a second ab-point and a knot in the rope (luckily I had a nice big ledge to stand on and some more tat to clip into at this point!) After much unknotting and another rethrow I possitioned myslef to drop very arkwardly down a slippey green waterfall and hopped / bounced / slipped / pretended to abseil properly to the path at the foot of the gully passing my foot under many waterfalls on the way... Once at the bottom and the ends of the ropes (they reached down both pitches with about a meter and a half to spare) I then signalled up for Kylie to follow who then underwent the same treatment minus the continual rethrowing of ropes. Having remember to check which rope to pull down we began only to find our knot got stuck in the rocks / trees not far from the top. Much pulling and flicking in both dirrections eventually freed the knot and allowed it to temporarily get stuck again further dow the route. Eventually though we retrieved two once new but now fairly damp / soggy half ropes and made a final stumbling descent to the waiting crowd (Andy, Matt and Heather) having increased the number of pitches for pulpit route to 6 and also setting the record for the longest / most entertaining descent. Needless to say it was mighty good fun! "My Universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay. For all I know, these people may not exist. You may not exist. I say what it occurs to me to say." | ||
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| HeatherC [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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The artist formerly known as El Presidente  Registered Member #317 Joined: Sun Oct 12 2008, 08:29PMPosts: 1528 | Tom, make this shorter. I got bored half way through and gave up and I was there watching the whole thing unfold and it was hilarious. Sorry. Also the only funny stories I have are related to watching you and your crazy climbing. Please tell (the abbreviated version of) the trapped in a belay and cuddling Ben hald way up Little tryfan story. And then the midge hotel, death by glue and insect coil smoke story. [ Edited Fri Jul 03 2009, 11:51AM ] What would Obama do? | ||
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| Monkey [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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 Registered Member #129 Joined: Wed Oct 19 2005, 09:00AMPosts: 1173 | Brilliant! Good story. Having done Pulpit route as a rope of 5 i know it quite well. How can you get lost on the first pitch? It goes straight up a very obvious slab!? This is an interesting piece of information to add to the famous 'getting lost' stories of the Kylie and Andy partnership. I swear they never do a climb that they don't get lost on. They always come back with some great tales!  That third pitch is quite exciting isn't it? I think that was Mandy's second ever lead. Amazing moves for a Diff/VDiff. I assumed from the chatbox that there wasn't the normal tat at the top of Little Gully. I am now even more amazed that you didn't go down that way! Sounds a fun descent though. I have to admit that I think I once tried it too, but was soloing so I bottled it and walked off over the top of the ridge to meet the North Ridge path - there's actually some really nice scrambling up there. | ||
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| Monkey [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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| Registered Member #129 Joined: Wed Oct 19 2005, 09:00AMPosts: 1173 | On the Sunday before you arrived, we went climbing at Idwal slabs (great place, although the descent is actually harder than most of the routes!). It was pretty damp but we gave it a go anyway. So Mikey and Christian climbed Hope without any drama and spent an hour lounging on the large ledge at the top while Simon, Bethan and I climbed Faith. These are both quality 4-5 pitch routes. So, Simon led off up a lovely slab with water streaming down it and pockets full of foam (it looked like bubblebath) to a lovely belay legde. We joined him and I lead off up the second pitch - a fairly daunting smooth slab, but with a bit of weaving I found some good holds and gear to get me up to the belay ledge above. I decided to link pitches 3 and 4 together as it was fairly straight up and should have been about 45 metres or so according to the guidebook. So off I went, up some lovely smooth slabs and over a little steep section. There wasn't a lot of gear here, but just about enough to keep the nerves in check. So I got over the steep section and there was a beautiful, long, smooth slab in front of me. It looked perfect, and the first few metres didn't dissapoint. Knowing that there was an impressive variant up the left arete, I headed that way, but padding up it, with no gear and no positive holds, in the wet didn't seem like the greatest idea so I retreated slightly and made my way up the face of the bald slab. Just as I was in the centre of the slab, about 10 metres from the belay I heard a shout from below... "5 metres of rope left!". "Are you sure?" I replied, starting to worry that I'd got my maths wrong. I was in the middle of a bald slab that I didn't want to reverse, and I certainly couldn't belay anywhere around me. They decided that maybe there were 6 metres left so I carried on, hoping that I might find some good gear or stretch to a little ledge. The rope was still feeding nicely when I got to the belay 10 metres above... Anyway, as I was getting close to the belay, a guy climbing the route next to me reached his belay and shouted to his partner that he was safe. A cry of "off belay" floated up. Then a few seconds later another cry of "off- belay" followed. How strange, this guy has 2 belayers. Hang on... something is not quite right here... Fortunately I was on the belay ledge by now so there was no problem as Simon put me back on belay while I made a decent belay with the small amount of gear I had left oand brought them up to join me. A final pitch was rapidly despatched to round off an excellent route. All that remained was to make that horrible descent (including an abseil off a moving block and Bethan scaring me and Simon as she balanced precariously over the edge rearranging her belay - apparently she was a lot more secure than she looked!). I definitely recommend this route. It's a beautiful VDiff and would be fantastic in the dry. It is a little bit less secure in the wet, but if you are confident it isn't a problem. This has also reminded me of another recent incident where I was leading a route in Dartmoor and felt a strong tug on the rope. It transpired that Andy ( belaying) had managed to fall off the ground somehow. It's ok, I'm not sure I understand how that works either... [ Edited Fri Jul 03 2009, 01:12PM ] | ||
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| HeatherC [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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| The artist formerly known as El Presidente Registered Member #317 Joined: Sun Oct 12 2008, 08:29PMPosts: 1528 | Great story Monkey. It sounds like everyone had eventful climbs. Now I'm vaguely disappointed that Matt managed to make it straightforward for us. Although i did get stuck on that move out of the gully on the penultimate pitch of Pulpit Route due to my backpack not allowing me to go upwards. I had to do an interesting leaning back manouever to escape which would have been fine had I not been weighted backwards to start off with. Unsurprisingly my screech doing that move was heard by Tom who was a reasonable distance below. I don't know where people get this idea that I'm loud! Anyway the more pressing point is really how Andy fell over whilst stood on the ground? What would Obama do? | ||
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| HeatherC [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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| The artist formerly known as El Presidente Registered Member #317 Joined: Sun Oct 12 2008, 08:29PMPosts: 1528 | I wasn't sure if the sunshine had really been emphasized enough!    What would Obama do? | ||
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| PerrinT [ Roof jammin'... Yeah! ] |
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| Retired Committee Registered Member #197 Joined: Fri Oct 13 2006, 02:51PMPosts: 1801 | Monkey - it reassures me to know that everyone can make stories and adventures out of a days climbing anyway the tale of myself and Ben swapping belay on little tryfan: (shall try my hardest to stay under control and keep this condensed instead of getting carried away...) Basically early one evening (6.30pm ish and still very sunny) myself and Ben McDonnald were climbing a route up the central section of little tryfan (I basically just picked a nice looking line rather than refering to a guide). At about halfway (or just above the height of a little triangluar belay stance on routes to the left) I found a decent spot to make a belay which contained a little ledge just about big enough for 2 1/2 feet to fit in. A perfect three point belay was set up with lovely solid placements and Ben was belayed upto myself with the rope coiling on my knee. On arrival It was clear that I have made a silly and rather arkward mistake as I had set up a perfect belay suuming I was at the top of a route and not halfway up and intending to continuing to lead! This led to much amusement to all around (including a couple of instructors climbing the next route) as Ben and I shuffled about on this tiny ledge (one foot each) and labouriously swapped belay. Taking back the lead gear from Ben provided another burst of amusement for the observers as reaching round to unclip gear from his harness only managed to make our proximity and predicament more arkward! In the end though all was fine and the belay was (perhaps dodgily) swapped enabling me to continue the lead and finish the route : ) [ Edited Fri Jul 03 2009, 04:06PM ] "My Universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay. For all I know, these people may not exist. You may not exist. I say what it occurs to me to say." | ||
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| Monkey [ Offwidth crack specialist ] |
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| Registered Member #129 Joined: Wed Oct 19 2005, 09:00AMPosts: 1173 | Fantastic. That does sound very amusing - did anyone get photos? How did you change the belay over? One very quick way is to get another krab into each piece of gear (next to your krab) and just attach Ben's ropes. Simple and quick. Also, you could attach a sling or length of rope directly between Ben and the central point of the belay (or if you have a direct belay, you could just tie him off) so he is hanging just below you, giving you space to rearrange things (this is more difficult/uncomfortable if the central point is your harness). I think lots of people discover that leading all the pitches on a route requires a different approach to belays in much the same way you did, so I wouldn't worry about it. That's why I tend to carry big slings. Another good thing about using slings in belays is that you have more rope to stretch to the next belay too. [ Edited Fri Jul 03 2009, 04:26PM ] | ||
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| PerrinT [ Roof jammin'... Yeah! ] |
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| Retired Committee Registered Member #197 Joined: Fri Oct 13 2006, 02:51PMPosts: 1801 | Monkey wrote ... How did you change the belay over? erm.... well maybe not in the safest way int the world! essentially I had everything fastend to one hms plus the tail of the rope to my harness, i clipped each of us to a separate peice of gear, transfered the hms and swapped ends of the rope, checking it all over again before unclipping from the gear and carrying on - next time however i plan to put a lot more pre-thought into what i am doing! "My Universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay. For all I know, these people may not exist. You may not exist. I say what it occurs to me to say." | ||
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| mullermn [ Roof jammin'... Yeah! ] |
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mullermn Registered Member #139 Joined: Sun Oct 30 2005, 08:52PMPosts: 1139 | Honestly! I turn my back on the forum for one day and what do I find! Massive character assassination! "Never do a climb they don't get lost on" "fall off the ground" indeed! Just because I have a fair for finding interesting variations on routes there's no call for criticism. And my inner ear problem is no laughing matter! [ Edited Fri Jul 03 2009, 09:00PM ] Killing Jack Bauer doesn\'t make him dead. It just makes him angry. | ||
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