Two days in North Wales

I was in Wales last week for two days alpine training with the director of the International School of Mountaineering (ISM), Pat Littlejohn. Pat is one of the world's leading climbers, and was recently granted an OBE for his contribution to British mountaineering over the years. When I first started climbing as a youngster in SA, his name was known even there, so I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about meeting and climbing with him. This came about through my contacting the ISM, and after chatting with Pat's wife Eira (she rang me at work to discuss what course would best suit me) we agreed it would be best for me to spend two days doing some winter climbing with Pat so he could assess where I'm at in terms of climbing skills.

Pat lives at the foot of Mt Snowdon in North Wales, about 3 miles from the lovely village of Beddgelert. I stayed at a B&B called Plas Gwyn, a 19th century house right next to the stone bridge crossing the Colwyn river.

I needn't have been nervous about meeting Pat. He's a normal, down-to-earth, all round smashing bloke, and, as expected, really knows his stuff. Because ice and snow climbing is quite new to me (I had only done a bit in Canada with Teddy McCrea last year) I find it extremely tiring, and I'm not as fit as I need to be yet. Towards the top of Thursday's climb my leg muscles began to cramp up, Pat immediately showed me a different technique to achieve the same actions, but using different muscles, enabling me to continue climbing where otherwise I'd have collapsed in a heap. The route we did was the Left Hand Y-gulley out of Cwm Lloer in the Ogwen Valley. We covered short roping, moving roped together over mixed ground, descending snow slopes, snow belays etc - all things they teach on the Alpine Summits and Skills course, effectively enabling me to bypass this course and go for the next level, Classic Alpinism.

This route brings one to the summit of Pen Yr Ole Wen (978m). As you can see it was a beautiful day, and a good freeze the previous night meant the conditions were perfect for British winter climbing. The other guy in one of the photos below was someone we met on the summit, he had soloed one of the easier climbs.

On the Friday we did a long ridge climb, just a rock climb this time, but in mountaineering boots carrying our rucsacs. We climbed the Pinnacle Ridge (and continuation) on Mynedd Mawr, walking up to the summit of the peak after the climb.

Pat's verdict? Well he's happy with my climbing skills, and said he felt quite safe climbing up after me when I was roping him up sections I had led. He's happy for me to do the Classic Alpinism course; the only thing I need to work on is my general fitness, although he said I'm not far off where I need to be, and there's plenty of time still to prepare. He also suggested I do the course in July rather than September, as the weather is more reliable then.

Two great days in the mountains learning from one of the world's best. Couldn't ask for much more.

A somewhat different day in the Mournes

Well this was almost two months ago, just after some of the most severe winter weather in decades. Yes, it's taken me that long to put up a post about it; I will not be rushed on these things.

The western part of the Mourne Mountains is the quickest to get to for me, it's less than an hours drive from Dundalk, more like 45 minutes. That's if traffic in Newry, a town which I can't avoid, isn't too heavy. Newry and Dundalk are only about 13 miles apart, but on different sides of this weird, artificial construct of a border which creates Northern Ireland. Spike Milligan wrote a book about this border ("Puckoon"), so enough said, probably. Anyhow, due to different VAT rates, lower cost of doing business in general and a very favourable euro-sterling exchange rate at present, Newry, and many other border towns in NI, have become shopping Meccas for people living in the Republic. The Sainsbury's in Newry sells more alcohol than any other Sainsbury's in the UK, and I've done my bit to contribute toward that reputation. The ASDA in Enniskillen is apparently the most profitable ASDA in the world. So when I go climbing after work in summer, or walking over the weekends in winter, I have to deal with Newry, its drivers, shoppers and worst of all, its unsynchronised traffic lights.

But it's all worth it to get to the Mournes, which has become one of my favourite places on earth. The rounded mountain tops, sometimes crested with rocky tors, spectacular views, beautiful countryside and great rock-climbing makes up a large part of the gaping chasm in any Capetonian's life who no longer lives there.

Every winter there's a bit of snow on the higher peaks of the Mournes, not all season, but for a few weeks. This year, however, we've had several heavy falls. I've never seen as much snow on the peaks as that Saturday, the 9th of January 2010. I donned my thermal base layer and headed out. The peaks on this side mostly have bird names, Hen, Cock (stop sniggering in the back there), Pigeon and Eagle. Not really inspiring, it has to be said. The tors of Hen provide some good rock-climbing with only about a 25 minute walk-in. Likewise Pigeon has some good rock routes, and I'd walked to its summit before with the children, so I decided to walk up past Hen to the summit of Cock, and back down.

The above photo is looking across to Eagle mountain on the way up to Hen. The path, a steep but pleasant stroll up a grassy slope in summer, was icy and quite teacherous; I slipped a good few times. Going up the northern slope of Cock I was soon wading through snow. This was the view looking down on Hen (the scene of my accident in 2006):

The view from the summit was amazing, not because Cock is a high, inspiring peak (it's not), but because I have never in the 5 years I've lived here seen the Mournes with this much snow. The peak in sunlight at the back of this next photo is Donard, the highest in the area at 850 metres. To the left of it you can see the rocky summit of Slieve Bearnagh (I was up there 2 weeks ago):

The Spelga Dam was frozen over and almost unrecognizable, the mountains' usually green landscape temporarily dressed in white, as though to be given away. I'd take you, Lady Mourne, except I'm already married.

And now the real fun part, I had battled through the snow on the way up, and wasn't looking forward to sinking up to my thigh on each step on the way down. Then I remembered there's a thing called "glissade", glissading is basically sliding down a snow slope on your arse. I was able to do this for at least 200 metres before it got a bit too rocky and grassy lower down.

By the way; the main reason I use Blogger instead of Wordpress is that with Blogger you can upload 5 photos at once. That's also why most of my posts have a maximum of 5 photos. I'm a lazy blogger, and totally unashamed of that!