User Comments
What was the date Bill ?
Removed User - 30/Jul/15
1970 The 3 of us did it. I was taking the photo's when I walked backwards and fell of the ramp down about 15ft but managed to get back up to do the route. It was quite bold them days but ok.
keith sanders - 30/Jul/15
Hi Keith. That looks like a Davek harness that Mr Briggs is wearing - assuming he's the one leading; presumably enjoying its last hurrah before the omnipresent Whillans subsequently swept the market.
I'm reminded of a two-part tale that I heard many years ago, which prompts me to suppose that the large, obvious, loose-looking chunk of rock might no longer be there. In the mid- to late-seventies I climbed quite a bit with a chap who, a few years after you took this picture - 1973/4, at a guess - had a go at Mynedd. Having successfully lassoed the spike and gingerly prusiked up to where the actual climbing started on the lip of the guardian overhang, he had just got himself established on rock when "all hell broke loose" beneath him. Boulders, in a range of sizes, came bounding down the Western Terrace towards his belayer, whose total annihilation was luckily averted when most of the larger bits disappeared over the edge before reaching him. The remaining pieces that actually arrived, however, were quite enough to do considerable damage; my friend had to knot together several sections of damaged rope in order to get back down, and his very battered colleague was thereafter stretchered off the mountain to hospital - and, as far as I'm aware, the end of his serious climbing career.
Part 2 of this story occurred quite a few years later during the "touristy" addendum to a climbing trip on some distant continent. My friend was doing a touristy thing, in a tourist location miles from any climbing, in the company of a number of other tourists. In the course of a short conversation with another Brit he was somewhat surprised to learn that the guy with whom he was chatting was not only:
a) a climber, but also:
b) a climber who, while (fortunately) seconding the first pitch of a route on Cloggy called Bloody Slab, sometime in the early 1970s, had suffered the misfortune of having a large flake fall off whilst being climbed - which, he imagined, must have given quite a fright to a team on one of the newer, harder routes further down the terrace.
Do we still get such "small world" encounters these days - or is the climbing population now simply too large?
Ian Parsons - 21/Feb/16
I'm reminded of a two-part tale that I heard many years ago, which prompts me to suppose that the large, obvious, loose-looking chunk of rock might no longer be there. In the mid- to late-seventies I climbed quite a bit with a chap who, a few years after you took this picture - 1973/4, at a guess - had a go at Mynedd. Having successfully lassoed the spike and gingerly prusiked up to where the actual climbing started on the lip of the guardian overhang, he had just got himself established on rock when "all hell broke loose" beneath him. Boulders, in a range of sizes, came bounding down the Western Terrace towards his belayer, whose total annihilation was luckily averted when most of the larger bits disappeared over the edge before reaching him. The remaining pieces that actually arrived, however, were quite enough to do considerable damage; my friend had to knot together several sections of damaged rope in order to get back down, and his very battered colleague was thereafter stretchered off the mountain to hospital - and, as far as I'm aware, the end of his serious climbing career.
Part 2 of this story occurred quite a few years later during the "touristy" addendum to a climbing trip on some distant continent. My friend was doing a touristy thing, in a tourist location miles from any climbing, in the company of a number of other tourists. In the course of a short conversation with another Brit he was somewhat surprised to learn that the guy with whom he was chatting was not only:
a) a climber, but also:
b) a climber who, while (fortunately) seconding the first pitch of a route on Cloggy called Bloody Slab, sometime in the early 1970s, had suffered the misfortune of having a large flake fall off whilst being climbed - which, he imagined, must have given quite a fright to a team on one of the newer, harder routes further down the terrace.
Do we still get such "small world" encounters these days - or is the climbing population now simply too large?
Whoooow Great story,Yes a lot of the Bloody slab was loose but just hanging on like the flake with the pink tape on. I think if you go straight up it's Heamogoblin which I did I think in 77 before that fell down at the bottom.
Al Randall and myself tried Mynedd I think in the mid 70s but didn't get very far probley why it may have all ready collapsed by then.
Yes last year in Kalymnos I was in a bar having a beer and the guy sat next to me turned and said do you know who I am, my reply was no, then he said we did red wall on gogarth in 73 still no idea, then when he said we then went to do Park lane Doomsville and I had to lower him from the bent peg 2 thirds of the way up. Suddenly it all came back to me. not seen him since 73 to that date last october
keith sanders - 21/Feb/16
Al Randall and myself tried Mynedd I think in the mid 70s but didn't get very far probley why it may have all ready collapsed by then.
Yes last year in Kalymnos I was in a bar having a beer and the guy sat next to me turned and said do you know who I am, my reply was no, then he said we did red wall on gogarth in 73 still no idea, then when he said we then went to do Park lane Doomsville and I had to lower him from the bent peg 2 thirds of the way up. Suddenly it all came back to me. not seen him since 73 to that date last october
Now I think about it, I had a sort of three-way version rather more recently - although ultimately less impressive being completely in the company of climbers. In October 1999 I was in Yosemite with Roger Mear, where we had managed to gain brief residence on a site in Camp 4. Roger was conversing with an Indian chap on the adjacent site who had apparently been resident in California for a long time; I don't remember what his profession actually was, but my understanding from others was that he was a leading and very respected member of it. We'll call him Person A. At some point in the conversation with Roger, of which I was only semi-aware, he mentioned a Person B.
"Person B?" exclaimed Roger. "He was our Liaison Officer on [insert name of large mountain]." Both names - the mountain and Person B - sounded familiar.
"I know Person B" I interrupted, mostly to Roger. "He was staying at Cromford with Person C [whom Roger knew] when he visited the UK, and we all had a day at Shining Cliff."
"You know Person C?" retorted Person A, somewhat taken aback. "He taught me to climb when he was stationed out in India, and left us all his gear when he returned home!"
Ian Parsons - 21/Feb/16
"Person B?" exclaimed Roger. "He was our Liaison Officer on [insert name of large mountain]." Both names - the mountain and Person B - sounded familiar.
"I know Person B" I interrupted, mostly to Roger. "He was staying at Cromford with Person C [whom Roger knew] when he visited the UK, and we all had a day at Shining Cliff."
"You know Person C?" retorted Person A, somewhat taken aback. "He taught me to climb when he was stationed out in India, and left us all his gear when he returned home!"