Al Baker gives a tribute to Ben Wintringham, a climber, a good friend and a great loss to the climbing world.
"One typically Welsh summer day I went with him to Tremadog. No sitting in Eric's for hours for Ben. As I slithered my way up the green first pitch of Vector the rain got harder. The next pitch was almost dry as Ben had predicted it would be as long as the rain kept coming straight down. He also led the top two pitches as the top half of the crag had now turned into a waterfall..."
In reply to UKC Articles: First met the great team of Ben and Marion in Yosimite 1973.Later that same year they came to New Hampshire where I was living and together we put up two still very popular new routes one on Cannon Mt "Union Jack" and the other on Whitehorse Ledge "Standard Route Direct". 2006 was our last meeting in an area we all loved the crags around Tafroute in Morocco.Ben is a great loss to us real old farts... Paul Ross
In reply to UKC Articles: Great article Al, captures a piece of history.
egg10 Dec 2011
In reply to UKC Articles: Well done Shaker, lovely tribute to Ben who if the numbers sqeezed into the chapel at the funeral is anything to go by, will be missed by a great many of us. I think his route on gogarth "Devotee" sums him up in name and nature, looks easy going but you'd better be devoted to your task if you want to get up it and just like Ben worth three stars.
egg
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