A place of Club History in Wales
by Ian Grimshaw
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Lliwedd, part of the Snowdon horseshoe, is one of the best places in North Wales to find
easier climbs that are long and arduous. And you will often find that you are the only
climbers in its intimidating 1000ft face. It is here where club members in the past have
enacted many an epic - failing to find the climb; finishing the top pitches in dark and rain;
dropping rucksacks and getting lost on the way down. With good weather over the past few weeks we hadn't packed any winter gear and it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that the four of us (Paul, Anna, Pritesh & myself) approached the mountain to see the top 400ft cloaked in snow. Was this to be the day of another epic? |
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We had picked Slanting Buttress. Only a Diff. climb, but in big
boots and rucksacks it would take a good five hours, with luck, to climb. The climbing
throughout was fairly straightforward, if a bit exposed in places. The only difficulty was
the running water lower down and the snow that had to brushed from holds higher up. This,
added to the cold wind, made seconding quite unpleasant. At one stage I think Anna lost
all feeling in her hands, and Paul almost lost his cool when heard to mutter "I
thought I was going to die!".
We descended the mountain as darkness fell and at last it seems that the epics and
disasters of the previous year could be firmly set in history. There wasn't even a
fight in Llanberis that evening, but then you can't have everything.