The best cliff : GOGARTH, by Stevie Haston

Journalists love superlatives and absolutes and the sound of their own voices, and often don't have the faintest idea what they are talking about. In this they are not dissimilar to the rest of us of course, humans being human and all that. But rock is not flesh and blood, rock is the foundation, it`s solid. Rock is an absolute and something we can rely on. And what more ancient and venerable collection of rocks can we consult or learn from than the superlative ancient stones of the Gogarth cliffs?

As someone who has climbed on many of the most beautiful cliffs in the world, I naturally have several favourites. You can probably guess which ones. Ceuse, Grand Capucin, the Tre Cime, and Gogarth, to mention just a few of the usual suspects. Each in its own way perfect and complete.

But it is Gogarth that seems to tick all my boxes. It has terror in extraordinary amounts, every conceivable angle of rock, good rock, bad rock, colours galore, climbable features like grooves, cracks, chimneys, and kindly enough offers all grades from easy to just below impossible.

The just below impossible has always interested me and this is where Gogarth`s routes score a full 10 out of 10; everything looks possible. It may not be of course, but it looks it, from Dream of White horses to Conan the Librarian. Gogarth's cliffs look climbable; they are not like those inhospitable, hard cliffs which somehow seem to be for squeaky serious mutants only. Gogarth attracts players, climbers who enjoy the game, rather than competing. North Wales has great cliffs and is the best area to climb in Britain. The jewel in this crown is Gogarth, because it seems to get the best out of you. The best cliff: a big claim, a biased claim? No, merely my not so humble opinion. I climbed there recently and it was distilled magic. It was a full meal when a lot of climbing feels like a quick snack, it nourished my soul, it reached those parts that beer can't. And it has seals. Yesterday we saw five baby seals, all furry, fat and white, like weird roly-poly grubs, creatures of fantasy.

When I was a fledgling climber, it was photos of Gogarth that excited me the most. They somehow where an obvious gate into another dimension. Just look at Leo Dickinson's famous photo of Dream of White Horses, more like climbing the underside of a pitted ancient meteorite than traversing an easy slab. The stories I read and later heard seemed so crazy they just excited me more than those about blander rocks in tamer scenery.

Alan Rouse on the crux pitch of Positron, going for it with a MOAC nut in his teeth. It was do or fly, with friend Pete Minks belaying while offering foul-mouthed encouragement. Knowing these lads made it all the more exciting, knowing how well they climbed made the route bolder. I wanted some of that. I wanted to boldly go where no man had gone, I wanted to laugh in the face of danger. Or at least nervously giggle. Even if today I am a reasonable climber, I judge my true worth by climbing a cliff like Gogarth.

Over the years many climbers have thought like me, and some have left a considerable mark on these cliffs, climbers from Joe Brown to George Smith. Sometimes it's not their hardest routes they like most, but the more idiosyncratic ones. Fly Trap for Joe perhaps, in and out of an un-travelled zawn, with a belay on a chockstone which seems to be the key rock, holding the zawn together.

One of my own favourite routes is similar in a way, in and out of a unclimbed zawn and then tunnelling and caving to emerge on another Joe Brown route in another zawn altogether. That is The Light That Didn't Shine, typical of a lot at Gogarth in that the sea and the water are part of the psychological make-up of the routes. This waterish element is worse for some of course, for if you can't swim or don't like water, many of Gogarth's best routes will be much more scary. The approach to many climbs is by airy abseil, with a perhaps rough sea boiling underneath you. But upon analysis, all these problems never seem to outweigh the grip factor you can be feeling. Indeed, I am always amazed at how safe most of the stuff is at Gogarth, with probably only a handful of really dangerous routes among hundreds of three to five star classics. The danger is often illusory, imagined rather than actual.

Of course, it was very different for the early pioneers, with their antiquated racks of inadequate gear. The route that bears the crag's name, Gogarth, was so loose it was likened to a jigsaw of sabres, literally a field of rock, covered in hanging spikes and by all accounts not that enjoyable for many years. The route and its low grade hide the true dangers of the early ascents, and many of the easier routes have similar ghastly histories.

A long love affair with these cliffs has allowed me to gauge the change of many ascents over the years. Superlative routes like Yellow Wall's The Moon have gone from being pokey, creepy affairs to just being very exposed gentle romps. But how many of us would have voyaged out like its first ascentionist, Mr much maligned Ed-ward Drummond, into that vortex of swirling colours and loose rock? There are old-timers who say Gogarth is too tame now and that everything is too solid. I am not one of them, but let's say some of the choss fests have been over-sanitized. Some of these veterans would be astounded at our triple racks of friends too. No wonder they were often good alpinists as well as good sea cliff climbers.

Last year the Gogarth North guide by Ground Up came out, and it reminded me of how deep is the debt that we owe many of our climbers. Some of the routes are hard and required much effort and time to climb. We often forget these cliffs are a bit more of an effort than a small edge, and conditions can be very fickle, with the sea fog, the spray and the humidity. The harder routes are plagued by Gogarth's soapy feel, often changing for the better in the late afternoon. Some of the zawns and marbly bits of the main cliff always seem slick, but just suffer really badly, especially those bits under roofs. I hope this guide and the forthcoming Gogarth South guide make the cliff a bit more popular in the future, as to neglect these great routes, some of which rank among Britain's best, is a real shame.

There are so many good routes, you can't even pick a top ten. Any starred route is better than the 3-star routes in the Peak and has more character and atmosphere to boot. Only in Scotland's Western Isles do you get the same quality, but at a considerably higher cost in both time and money. Even in bad weather you can still do a long sea level girdle and gain vital knowledge of the cliff, while having a scream of a time. Wetsuits are probably obligatory, as well as a sense of humour, as you will end up doing more swimming than planned. Yet every time I have reluctantly done so it turned out to be a great day.

Which of Gogarth's walls are the best? The answer is entirely up to you. I have enjoyed all of them, from the looser ones at South Stack to the solid main cliff. The only one I am a bit reluctant to recommend is North Stack wall: some very good routes, but also a handful that are frightening rather than exciting. You really do have to have your loins well girdled for that half dozen routes, and be climbing very confidently to succeed with any margin.

My favourite days at Gogarth? Too many to mention, but certainly those when visiting new walls, doing new routes, or coming back after a long absence. Recently I completed a new route which I first thought of thirty years ago, so a chapter closed for me. I cleaned the route a month or so prior and tried to climb it, but gave up due to bad conditions and bad weather. I even had to import a belayer from France, who in the end was more captivated by the seals' antics than mine. Great conditions made the climbing reasonable but the day was exceptional: a cold breeze and the snuff dry rock felt sticky. I thoroughly recommend this latest addition to Gogarth's repertoire. The Randy Rhinhog is well protected, has weird blind moves, lots of jamming and is stunning. It's exposure feels like that of a much bigger cliff, simply another five star route, a must-do for aficionados and a must-avoid for those who like predictable climbing.

The route is in memory of Gordon Tinnings, a guy who loved Gogarth.

It's protected by some ice climbing bulldogs and some pegs, so get on it now and not in a few years when these rust...

Grippers by Stevie ‘the claw’ Haston.

Tools of the trade

Hand Grippers have been for about 100 years, but most people dismiss them. I think they are fun, and they can help with hand strength, so why not get one?

Their basic plus, is that they are light, and portable, and they are fairly cheap. They are not the be all and end all, just an adjunct.

What do they do? Well they don’t do a lot, it’s you that does the work, and its you that has to find out how to use them to your advantage. The reason most people dismiss them is because they see no application to rock climbing, well, think a little out side this narrow way, and you might see some thing in Grippers for you. The hand is a really wonderful thing, it’s so complex, it needs a whole gym to exercise it properly, and grippers can make up a part.

The normal way to use a gripper is the ‘Crush’, kindda just squeezing, and this isn’t super useful to a climber except in one small overlooked area, the little and ring finger. The little and ring finger are the weakest, and so it might be profitable to strengthen them. If you invert the Gripper in the hand; the strain is the opposite, it is now primarily taken on the index, and the ‘rude’ finger. So you already have two ways to train. If you buy a gripper that you cant close, the range of movement is almost nothing, so the gripper turns into an open hand strengthener in a static mode like in climbing. Now if you buy a gripper that is too weak for you, you can close it in a crimp. So now you have four options to train with. If you use the gripper to train your thumb, it is getting very interesting, because the thumb can be ridiculously strong. You can do all this with an adjustable strength Hand gripper; or two grippers of different strengths.

My hands are very weak at present, so I am going to start using them again. If you have just a very good crimp like many climbers do, good for you, but you might consider rounding out your hand strength and hand health. Mixed climbers will fully realise the importance of hand strength as their hands unwrap from an axe, and they plummet. And if you find yourself unable to untie your knot, or undo a Screwgate carabiner, you can get into a bad fix, don’t blame your hand strength, blame yourself. Hands are amazing things, to think of them, as just crimping devices is dumb. When you have to pump up a rope from an overhanging fall you might be keen on a bit of Crush power.

Grippers come in different strengths just like climbers. There have been a few climbers with very good grips, and in-fact one of the few tests that seems to reflect leading, and bouldering ability, is a calibrated grip test. If you do a lot of Trad climbing, and have to help your buddy on the rope, a bit of hand strength is very welcome. So try to explore the possibilities of a Hand gripper, and you might get more out of it, and your hands. Obviously climbing related grips are the best for climbing; but grippers defiantly are useful if you temporarily don’t have access to either climbing, or a Finger board.

There is some evidence you can train the Hands with a lotta volume, and also with negatives, but be shy of working against the natural movement of the joints. If you want to train the hands negatively, or in a Stactic hold, close the hand with two hands, and hold with one. In extreme cases you can use a cheat bar, and this is much kinder on your lower back than big dead lifts.

Good luck and don’t hurt yourself. 

Burning off Ben Moon by Stevie Gibbose Haston

Ben, Mike and Stevie the stalker

Ben Moon did the first ascent of Hubble in 1990, it was the first 9a in the world under the new Uefa grading system, I burnt him off once. He wasn’t pleased!
Ben Moon was eclipsed in many ways by Wolfgang Gullich, who was certainly not Bens equal in pure bouldering, or redpointing. This is the odd way history is,  its not an accurate thing, its easily subverted.
Now then a few months after Ben did Hubble, his best buddy Jerry Moffat was climbing well so he thought he would try Hubble. By some weird coincidence I was there with Kurt Albert, Wolfgang’s old training buddy. The World is indeed a small place full of odd coincidences. Anyway Jerry huffed and puffed but could not blow Hubble away, Kurt and I laughed, Jerry fumed and then went incandescent but all to no avail. Hubble is apparently a hard nut to crack. Kurt and I being out of our league decided to go arête climbing on the Grit instead, we did Archangel, Ulysses, Edge Lane and Great Arrete, we Talked about how routes can break you mentally, we had a great time. Kurt was a talented pianist and told me that certain bits of music broke him, a bit like redpointing, you know you can do them, but you cant!
Some years later in Salt Lake City I met up with a few strong people and we were all messing around. A certain Ben Moon became interested in picking up a weight attached to a needle, he was adamant that he could beat everybody, he was wrong. He couldn’t beat me. I burnt Ben Moon off.
I went out a few times to watch Ben and Mike Beck bouldering as a master class lesson. Mike Beck was really cranking at the time and it was very inspiring to watch him, very short, no excuses, and him and Ben enjoyed each others company. Anyway I moved Mats for them and brushed a few holds, and generally gawked.
At one boulder venue however I was lucky and did something and Ben looked at me shocked, and said ‘Stevie you could be good if you lost a bit of weight’, inside I laughed. “Condescending young Whippersnapper” I said, ‘I am the Champ at weight lifting with a needle and don’t forget it’..
After my tiny victory I was relegated to labouring for Ben and Mike, Ben would point at tree stumps and I would up root them like the trained Mule I am. Its horses for  courses, and bouldering is not weightlifting. 

Rules of training by Stevie the Dictator Haston.

First rule of training, is don’t hurt yourself.
Second rule of training, is don’t hurt yourself.
Third rule of training is, don’t hurt yourself.

These rules apply to every sport, not just climbing.

Drink lots of Liquid, it helps protect your tendons.
Be courteous and pleasant to others so that they are courteous and pleasant to you, so that you can all profit from training.
If you do hurt yourself, even in a minor way, take 10 whole minutes to think about it, go have a coffee, and think about it, do not carry on in any way which might make the injury worse. Do not keep squeezing and testing the injury, you only make something worse by hurting it more.
Tidy up your mess before you leave. After you finish turn to the training area and bow just like in Martial Arts, now do two things, say thanks and goodbye, and check you didn’t leave anything!

Blisters by Stevie Haston.

Blisters are a bugger, better not to have them. How to not have them can be a trial, but prevention is way better than cure. I am tough but although they haven’t yet made me cry yet, blisters have made me yowl, and yell, and wince and wobble. They have even put me in hospital with serious blood poison once, so are defiantly not a laughing matter.
Prevent them. You need to monitor your feet all through the year. Your feet must be kept supple and clean, and most importantly, no hard skin. The best time to sort your feet out is sitting in the shower, or with your feet in a bucket of water. You soften the skin and scrape it off with a stone, or file. Don’t be too aggressive, better to do it over a few goes, than all at once. After filing, apply some oil, and massage it in. Sort out your nails while you’re here, Not just because you get in-growing toe nails, but because they can rub adjacent skin, and also catch in socks, and against the inside of the shoe. The skin on your feet should be soft like a baby.
Shoes and socks are really very important. Check your socks for stones, tiny sticks and seeds. Discard any sock with a ridge in the material, or a hole. Pay a lot of attention when you put the perfect sock on, to prevent any rucking of material. Two thin socks are better than one thick one, but at all costs don’t have feet that are too hot.

Blisttered to the Ying Yang but happy at the finish of the TDG, notice preventative beer can in hand...

Shoes have to be the right size for the distance, They need more room on long, to very long runs because your feet will swell. They must not be so baggy  that they allow excessive movement in long traverses, and while contouring. They need to be perfect! Goretex or waterproof lined shoes can be way too hot, and will promote blisters. I love my goretex shoes but only when I, and conditions decide. Even unlined shoes can be too hot so watch out for dark coloured ones, as well as ones with lots of plastic toe protection. Examine the inside of your shoes for rub points, discard shoes that become rough inside, and rub a toe, or keep them for short runs.
On really big runs were you have to keep on running with blisters, be really super careful about infection. A blister which is broken, is an easy entry point for infection, that’s why you are normally advised not to touch them. If you must touch them its better to do it earlier than let your shoe, and the terrain do it for you. You need a clean needle to pierce the skin, clean fingers to get rid of fluid, and then a clean dressing. Betadine is my preferred solution because you can see it, due to the colour, so you know where it has been.
Blood blisters are supposed to be one step up, and doctors sometimes refuse to do anything for you. A blood blister can sometimes happen at a very deep level especially if you haven’t sorted out those callous. If it is very deep and you continue to run it gets worse, the pressure opens up from inside. If it is close to the surface an incision with a scalpel will drain it, clean it up, disinfect the hell out of it, and make sure see a doctor after the race or course.  I have cut thru deep layers to relieve pressure, but I would not do it for some one else, because it is a serious procedure. If you are anywhere remote take a course of antibiotics with you. Blood poisoning comes on quick, you will have a swelling or stiffness at the juncture of your leg and hip in 12 to 24 hours. With out treatment you can die.

Feet one month after a race...

Some people pre tape their hot spots, and there rub spots, if this works for you good. What works for me is prevention. I am also keen on not running when I have damaged feet, but there is a bit of a problem because of special races that you don’t want to miss, the entries are expensive. It is on your own head right, your decision. You can have a blood blister, and not know about it, because of depth, but you will be aware that something is amiss. If you do alotta tarmac you can sometimes have an almost permanent one on your heel strike area. A telltale black line sometimes gives it away. Cooling down your feet in freezing mountain streams can be good but not after you have holes in them remember infection doesn’t need much.
I have seen people with horrific feet still finish tough races, and they heal up in a month, its up to you. 
On multi days the commercial Compede works well, as does climbing tape, the higher quality ones work best. All the adhesive tapes work best on dry skin, putting an expensive Compede on damp skin, is worse than useless, as it will just slip. If you don’t have fancy plasters for the job, even gaffa tape will do- that’s Duct tape in America.  If you carry sticks you can always put a couple of turns around the pole, for a bister repair, or to tape up a twisted anckle.
 Hope this helps. More fun and Success to you, and less pain.

The Way of the Dervish, by STEVIE HASTON

Katie Haston on the Dervish

Are route names important? 'Seventy Thousand Assyrians' is the title of a short story by a brilliant writer called William Saroyan. I was going to use it as a route name but instead I chose 'Comes the Dervish'. It became the name of a symbolic route of a thousand shades of mauve and purple.

A slab that had been chipped for me by an unknown Welsh Powder Monkey, slippery stone, turned into a test for chalk-covered fingers. Mostly it was mine, 'all mine my precious', but of course you can share it. Routes are funny little things, mere pathways up bits of stone, but sometimes they have a story. We often burden them with significance, and mystery and an aura totally beyond their span. Slate routes are a little odder than most. The very medium implies distrust; brittle and incredibly lacking in friction, this stone cannot be trusted. Or so we once thought, and maybe we still secretly believe that slate is malign.

In 1980 I was sitting in Pete's Eats at lunchtime, without the means to afford lunch. I was staring in the direction of the Prince of Wales, though I had no money for its fine ale, and I was banned anyway. Through the drizzle I noticed that some slates on some roofs were by some alchemy dry. It wasn't a trick, it was a sign, a starting block for a new route boom, so I stirred my tea and then naturally forgot about it. That's what happens to great ideas when dropped into the minds of young lads, they are simply forgotten. You generally need burning bushes or meteorite strikes to wake youths up. Later that week I failed to hitch to Tremadog and instead found myself swimming in the magical aquamarine of the Vivian Lake. My companion was a happy hippy chick, we were not burdened by clothes, we were floating, resting on the surface tension of a secret spell, between the blue of the lake and the turquoise of the sky, a trance-like place, timeless. As we opened our eyes, a kaleidoscope of colours assailed us, blues, browns, purples, greens, spinning around and then, there, in the middle, appeared the Dervish. It showed the way, it promised scary stuff, vanquished by arcane techniques, it was The Way.
Spending time in North Wales is easy. So many rock types within a short drive, the sea cliffs and the mountains, nowhere in Britain offers such variety of climbing. One day in London thirty years ago I quit my job, packed my pack, hitched to Wales, and fell in with a crazy bunch of rowdies, reprobates and riotous Pan worshippers. They were climbers, but they were also people in love with life. I was a student of climbing, and came to be apprenticed, to learn more, broaden my skills and at the same time shake a tail feather in the university of Lambert. They were halcyon heady days, hazy after all this time, but famous to those who were there.
Fight club every Friday night in Caernarfon. The elders of the climbing world dishing out free advice and the odd sandbag in the Padarn Lake hotel on Saturdays. Climbing was so popular that you couldn't get into the pubs of a weekend, or onto the fashionable crags. This meant routes were clean, info was on offer, and there were partners and enjoyable climbing society everywhere. You could be penniless and physically broken, but some kind old dude would buy you a pint and listen to your tales of daring do. The elder statesmen had been everywhere and done most things, some shameful, some staggering, but all recounted in that put-down, self-disparaging style, punctuated by boyish smiles. The partying was prodigious, the casualties colossal, the fun farcical and free ranging. At one party I remember the editor of the world's premier climbing magazine and the head of the BMC, both unconscious, and I didn't think this odd or inappropriate.

It was the time of the famous Dance of the Flaming arseholes and other such social frivolities. A time and a mindset never to be forgotten. I lost a lotta mates in the next few years and I'd just like to mention Al Harris, Mark Whitfield, Rob Utley, Gordon Tinnings and Dirty Alex (Macintyre), because they were very special to me. You hear a lot today about the trauma of losing mates, but in those days you just went on the ale. Some of course never got back off it, and became casualties of another sort.
There were whacking great holes in my climbing skills, apart from a yearning in my heart for fun, laughter, and joy, and I needed to fill these needs. Having travelled around the country I had seen many very good climbers and come to understand the necessity of the complete palette of skills. Colourful Wales was the place for me to learn mind skills, not just the rockcraft, but also the Jedi-stuff. In those far off times there were some exceptional people who not only had the moves, but also could tap into a flow, a secret place of free movement, unencumbered by fear. It wasn't always there of course, and it wasn't always accessible, but you could see it if you looked very closely and thought outside the finger strength box.
In the 70s and early 80s people did think differently. Ron Fawcett had the flow occasionally. He is famous now, but then he was just one of a huge bunch of very talented climbers who at times tapped into the flow. When he did Lord of the Flies, you could see he was there, he was inside that climb, he was complete. Ron didn't have it all the time; it comes and goes, this gift. For some of us it is there briefly, for just one summer of superlative stuff, and then poof, it's away, just a happy memory.

Great climbers I have seen are Joe Brown, prodigy John Allen, and masters Ray Evans and Hank Pasquil. The last two were incredibly cool on lead, and not widely known. Ray took the piss outta me once when I was trying a new route on Gogarth in '78, when my second was pressurising me to put a peg in and use it to clean a loose section, so that we could do the route, though with aid. I listened to Ray rather than my famous second and retreated. My greedy second went back and did the first ascent. I lost a route, but learned a very valuable lesson from a master. I knew I could move my level of loose rock skills higher and didn't have to compromise my fair play to accommodate my ambition.
The Dervish was very blank when I stared at it from the scree-covered tier at its base. It was unlike any of the few routes that had been done on slate until then, which had been fairly easy and more exploratory adventures, rather than technical tests. This clearly was going to be very hard. I bouldered out the start, taking ground falls from loose flakes until I managed to get stuck on a little ledge at about 12-foot.
The next 100-foot looked the same, but further, bigger ground falls were more than my knees and heart would stand. So, I abseiled down, cleaning it with a knife and fork from Pete's Eats. There was gear, but it would all be very small, number one and two stoppers, and the climbing was going to be on fingertips and rubber edges. After I'd cleaned it, I gave the first lead attempt to Chipper Jones, as he was the best slab climber in our posse. He couldn't believe I was giving away such a pearl, but I wanted to learn and my intuitive brain told me I would learn more by watching than by doing. These were the years before videos, YouTube, and blogging infinite, and it was hard to learn, but damn it, I wanted to learn. I wanted to know my shortcomings, so that maybe I could make them up.
Chipper gave it a really good go, getting high but then ran out of strength, and psyche, but not technique. Being stronger than Mr. Jones I knew I just had to access more psyche, and so I did, I just pulled the switch and I became the Whirling Dervish. I woke up above the overlap my last gear miles below, and with 20-foot of uncleaned rock to the belay. I made it to the sound of Chipper swearing at me for succeeding on 'his' route. Chipper and McGinley did the second ascent, and Dougie 'the Bold' Hall the third, but not without taking a fall. It was top end E5 for a while, a good test of one's inner calm, and it became a collectors' route. Slate was to hold on to its bad reputation for a long time.
Even to this day there are people who are proud that they did an early ascent of the Dervish. Younger climbers should realize that in those far away days people mostly had very limited racks of gear, and climbing boots with holes in them. Climbers made personal journeys of discovery rather than trained. They were archaic times, and people's standards were all over the place. Good climbers often had to access some intestinal fortitude or some Jedi calm to make up for lack of gear or physical fitness. Climbers took climbing to a certain level, only for it to be forgotten, and then others would start again. There was little continuity of knowledge, and for many climbing was a game of macho one-upmanship. I saw it differently, but didn't know why or how or where it would take me, or where I would take my climbing.
The day of the Dervish was over for me quickly. It was just one lesson out of my long course in climbing, for I was a slow learner, and still am. I was just a boulderer, or at best a gritstone climber, while some of my friends and mentors had made the transition to 'bigger' routes almost by instinct and years before me. Leigh McGinley and Chris Gore, the late human anagram Arnie Strapcans; these were friends who would often do the big leads when I would be bouldering somewhere, shirking the serious stuff. Or someone like Cliff Philips, who had harnessed his heart into soloing first ascents with his light frame, capable of skipping over rock, rather than fighting it.

But over the years, climbing with many good and great climbers, a kind of osmosis happened. Sometimes it was a two-way thing, when I gave and didn't just take. The Dervish however always gives; it gives you the purity of its line, its position, and its colour, still as stunning now as then. Its difficulty, though diminished by large degrees, is still a question of finesse and delicate technique and a prerequisite for harder slate. None of those harder routes on the magic, icy, slippery slate could have happened without Mr. Dervish. That was its true gift, an eye opener and no mistake.

There were also the small battles that had to be won or at least fought, the battle of the bolt. Bolts don't have the legitimacy in Britain they have elsewhere, so we had to understand their place or make a place for them. As the blanker faces were attempted, often the poor gear that was the norm on slate had to be supplemented by a bolt or two. Bolts were placed by Joe Brown himself. I do not castigate him, but merely mention it for historical reasons. Other famous bolts were placed by other notable climbers and pre-practice became the norm on the harder routes. Many of the true onsight skills that were once known, were lost. Again I do not criticise, I just mention it, lest people forget these arcane skills, these atavistic arts that could supplement everybody's climbing. But onsight ground up has to be within limits of looseness and ability and the rock was not supplying onsightable stuff in significant amounts or of sufficient quality. I have never placed a bolt on slate.

Married to today's levels of fitness and gear, particularly rock shoe brilliance, most people would climb two E grades harder when accessing inner calm - this force that some of the older climbers could tap into. The new pro-bolts attitude opened up much rock and the cleaning tidied up the quality no end. The fear that the slate would become emasculated proved unfounded. Without the great bolted routes like Manic Strain - just to the left of the Dervish - we wouldn't have the repertoire of routes we need to get to the next technical and physical level. In hindsight their bolts are now a non-issue. A route like the Quarryman with its length and disparate pitches of great climbing surely is a must for today's climbers, and a stepping-stone into the future. A few bolts placed by a stone master showing the way is not a sin.

Sadly the Welsh scene is not as vibrant as it once was. The limited amount of reasonable rock for new routes and a more moral social structure has created its own rewards and shackles, but the routes are there, the talent is there. It used to be said that if you climb on all rocks in Wales, you develop the skills necessary to climb anywhere in the world. With the addition of a touch of ice this old adage is probably true.

The Past, that sacred time during which the old skills were so blatant? Ray Evans, climbing onsight new routes in weird RAF boots way above his gear, calm and serene. I can see him now, but can you? I think a few of each generation still do the same, but forgive me for thinking there could be more.

Caving Dervish style with Kate and Mini Trogs

In Ron Fawcett's book there is a lovely section on soloing. In a way it is about this elusive ability that is sometimes harnessed, it's worth reading again and again. There were many people who used to solo in the old days; a very common practice, but the reaper had to be paid. Noddy, Jimmy Jewel, Derek Hersey, Paul Williams and many others have passed to the other side. Loving something called soloing is classed as a sin in today's society but it used to be seen as a celebration of life.
The first pair of EB's I had were Tony Wilmott's. They were too big for me in more ways than one. I inherited some of his stuff after he died soloing, a long time ago. Tony used to do a lecture, called the Black Light show. It wasn't about the dark side; it was just about the two sides.
Is there anything finer than soloing a dozen routes at Tremadog?
Just don't wake up flying through the air, that's all.
Is there anything finer than being way above your smallest wires, sublimely confident in your skill?
1993: Identifying Derek's dead body in Yosemite and seeing the cost, I was not able to avoid the questions. But there were days like the one Derek had in the Black Canyon, inoubliable, was perhaps his defining moment. Today, as I write this, I must say the price seems too steep. And there I think is the rub; age has finally finished what the political correctness of the 80s began.
The 80s were the watershed of my life. Childhood and freedom on one side, being bound by watches and time and money on the other. Weird stuff like the war with Argentina, and the glorification of the burning the Argies in the Belgrano. The taking away of choice with front seat belt legislation and two decades of Toryism, it all contributed to my alienation from the New Briton. Many climbers seemed to retreat into climbing and to the smaller communities in the climbing areas, but even there the tide has I think been too strong. The new North Wales in this new century is still relatively unspoilt, adventures are there in plenty, and luckily it is still a place where you can hide from the latest political nonsense.
Today there is a fantastic number of great routes on slate, with authors like the cosmonauts Dawes and Redhead, and stalwarts like the Crook and Smith, a cast of hundreds. It's probably a good time to celebrate the Quarries more and keep a careful eye on the access situation. The quarrymen and the climbers left us a great heritage that we should be proud of, and perhaps we should guard it also. There are routes of all grades, to suit any persuasion. Hundreds more could be added, so get going. And maybe we should retain some Dervish in all of us, just a bit, to keep the magic of the force alive.

The Education of a Mountaineer - by Stevie Haston

 

I grew up, if I ever grew up at all, in two places; the Dickensian jungle that was the East End of London and Gozo, a small cliff encrusted island paradise that sits in the Mediterranean a few miles north of Malta.
I grew up in the Sixties, I was born in 1957.
It's a long time ago and the world has changed, but I am almost the same as that long lost boy.
I climbed before I knew the word and what it meant; on Gozo it was up Carob trees or chasing my goats up hillsides or scrambling up loose crumbling sea cliffs. In London I climbed derelict buildings and wire fences that tried too keep me in, or keep me out.
There were three male figures in my early life.
My Maltese grandfather was an ex-sailor; my Uncle Jock a political activist and ex-sailor; and my Dad, Scottish, an ex-sailor, and a steel fixer on high buildings, a strong and staunch union man. They all loved the outdoors, they all had huge lives, and bizarrely they always treated me like a younger brother.
My mother was Maltese, a dark skinned Dolly Parton, totally bonkers and yet very kind. She hardly spoke a word of English. She fell for the red haired Viking, my father, and out of this union came me. From the earliest age I was attached to a leash, a real leash that kept me from wandering off, my parents were always losing me you see. I was a wanderer. There was a tag around my neck stamped with name and address, and this was also sewn into my clothes. Kind policemen would bring me back to a distraught crying mother and a raging, worried father. Neither the tears or the beatings ever had the slightest effect on the bemused young adventurer or on the fledgling climber. I kept wandering.

 

On the friendly island of Gozo, unlike hostile London, there was never any danger from people, but there were huge overhanging sea cliffs and dangerous seas which made the birds eggs harder to collect and the fish harder to catch. All my relatives spoke really loudly and were always deeply passionate about something, even when speaking with their hands. The cacophony from the people around me was like a colony of sea birds on a cliff ledge, deafening. On Gozo you were either a farmer, a fisherman, a teacher or a priest; some of my family did the lot. Two doors down from our house my second cousins Peter and Paul, twins, were both priests. They were pretty average fishers of men, but brilliant in a small boat 50 miles off the coast fishing for swordfish. One had a stutter and one a twitch, I acquired both afflictions.
Peter and Paul's brother Pio kept bees and a flower garden, he taught me the catechism while the twins would make me repair their fishing nets.
Just before secondary school I spent more than my summer holidays on Gozo. The reason? I was sent there for a few years to keep me out of trouble and to civilise me as I was running around in London with street urchins and on a fast tract apprenticeship to Artful Dodger status.

The Maltese teachers still had contact with the land and sea, they were still real and knew the real desires of a child like me who was born to roam the cliff tops...
But somewhere along the line I started reading books on caving, climbing and exploration. These books seemed to justify and glorify all the stuff that got me into trouble, so I gobbled them up. There were no Everests locally but there were 60 foot high boulders to conquer, and slippery cliffs of clay to cut steps up with carpenter hammers and a screw driver in hand. The Maltese teachers still had contact with the land and sea, they were still real and knew the real desires of a child like me who was born to roam the cliff tops, talking to Golden Orioles and Hooppee birds, rather than struggling with long division.
Back in the other world of London, the supposed sophisticated real world, the Cold war was on.
There was a blossoming of spiritual freedom, there were plans to land men on the moon, and black people in America were starting to be classed as human by their white brothers, their former captors. It was an interesting and optimistic time. But at the same time this world of hope started to fade from my horizon, the Vietnam war raged, the Cold War was at its height, and politicians who were meant to serve us were exposed as liars and thieves

Stevie Haston climbing in Malta

As a teenager I started desperately to look for an alternative path in my life, I escaped into sport and books. Fairness, right and wrong, morality, these were abstractions it seemed. I passed my eleven plus examination and went to an elite grammar school where I found that the rich kids had been tutored through there entrance exam. I was for a time the most caned kid in the school and to this day I can't understand how the best kids, the unique kids, the gifted, were the ones who were often expelled. The school did however have an excellent library and a few of the teachers were dedicated and believed in their work.
My thumb represented freedom in those days and school was just a prison that tried to trap my immortal soul.
Was this school there to kindle my spirit and help me find my own peculiar talents and gifts or was it there to break my spirit and make me a slave to the machine?
A book I read at this time was I Chose To Climb by Chris Bonington. I liked the man's climbing, his spunk, but he was the opposite of me, middle class, a man who chose climbing as an occupation, a military man, a toff. The big thing of course is that you don't choose to climb, climbing chooses you or that's what I thought. If it wasn't for the books about Don Whillans and Joe Brown, two working class lads, who somehow rose above their impoverished upbringings to lead interesting lives and become great climbers, I don't know what would have become of me. Perhaps 10 useless O levels and a career in lower management was the way forward instead of bunking off school, sticking my thumb out and hitching up the M1 to gritstone cracks, and my real vocation of climbing. My thumb represented freedom in those days and school was just a prison that tried to trap my immortal soul.
What is climbing?
For me it is the vehicle to explore the natural world where strength and skill overcome difficulties. You are not just flotsam in the social sea, you make real decisions that govern your life and death. It is a special place where you enjoy yourself like an animal, feel your pulse racing, experience the sweat of fear and anxiety, and the taste of well-earned success.
Climbing is my life, climbing is life. How can there ever be anything else?
In the last few months Craig Luebbin, Thomas Humar and Guy Lacelle died. I knew them and loved them, each one very different from the other, but the one thing they had in common was their genuine, deep love of climbing as a way of life. There was something of the boy in them all, a boy who had no wish to grow up. Their journey is over, I will miss them. Growing up is not linear it is like the sea, learning comes in continuous little waves and each of those dead men taught me something.
Their obituaries were inadequate, especial Humars. Yes he used the media; well it was only fair, retaliation really, the media used him, so quid pro quo. The fire in his eyes warmed the cockles of my heart. He was like one of my mad Maltese cousins, passionate and loud, a Cyrano de Bergerac of the climbing world.
Enough of death, what of life? Life is for living. It's not about sitting in a classroom reading books about geography; it's quietly slipping out while the teacher turns to the chalk board. Geography is escaping and discovering Soho and little Chinatown. Sport is not playing dumb team sports like cricket, it's soloing stupendous icicles which will come thundering down around your head if you don't hit them for six. A level art is time spent in Spain snaking your way up beautiful tufas, all orange and blue, a little bit Dali, Gaudi and Velazquez.
There were no streetlights in my grandfathers street when I was young, there were stars that made your soul long to explore wild spaces. Climbing is that vehicle to explore, outside of yourself, and inside. Climbing is dawn starts with my Pappy all those years ago, a sac on our backs and a few miles of cliff to fish, soloing up and down. Pre-dawn starts with a bowl of bitter black coffee as breakfast, then we wouldn't exchange a word all day. No shoes to worry about, limpets and sea weed to chew on. Pappy's story was that he had left his fiancé immediately after she had accepted his proposal and sailed around the world for two years. When he came back she was naturally still cross, so he handed her the money for a house and a farm.
I always remember a conversation about my uncle Jock spending time in prison during the war, he was a revolutionary communist and a conscienous objector. My dad was a man who had run blockades. Their father lost a leg during the first war. Was there any animosity between them, about so called bravery? No, in fact the greatest respect was shown for Jock, the conscientious objector, the bravest of the brave as my dad called him.
My dad recalled this conversation years later when we were climbing at Almscliff. He was enjoying the view after climbing a stiff overhanging crack called Western Front, when he suddenly turned to me and asked about climbing and bravery and principle and who and what was right? I stuttered trying desperately to think of something clever to say. He said 'Nay mind son, you have balls but nay brains, but Jock had balls and brains', he laughed and agreed that climbing was the thing for me and that we should let the world go to rot and go find a pub.
My parents were desperately poor at times. But it is clear they gave me one special thing, 'vaster than empires' a thing called freedom. My Pappy's gift was teaching me to swim the Gozo way. He threw me in off a wharf and watched me nearly drown a few times and when it looked like I wouldn't sink forever, he strolled off smiling, content in his schooling.
If you saw the Gozo technique being applied today most people would call for the police. It was this kind of schooling that saw me in the Alps as a teenager, soloing winter routes in Chamonix at 16 years of age. It was also the early lessons I learnt on loose rock and clay that helped me understand the peculiar material that is snow an ice. I somehow knew that it was only the frozen manifestation of the dangerous sea. The greatest lesson was that my soul and heart were the most important parts of the thing I called me, and that you were supposed to dedicate your life to the service of goodness. The fact that I failed to find a vocation for greater good is sad but the ideal of service has percolated into my climbing just like my Pappy's bitter coffee. Uncle Jock stood as a Revolutionary Communist Party member for the Neath election in 1948 and that clearly was not the done thing and yet in my family Jock just did it.
One day I will perhaps climb a giant Himalayan peak and surf the snow down the other side and I will have finished the journey that was started by those three men. It won't change the working conditions of the ordinary man but it might make them smile. It won't be a sermon, it might be a pointer to something sublime. The trick will be for it not to being a crass act, but a class act. And if I do surf that mountain I am a sure that my holy trinity will smile.
But it will never be a bigger journey than my dad cycling to London when he was 14, living off turnips and sleeping by the side of the road. And it certainly won't be a bigger adventure than my mums. For a very young woman to leave peasant Gozo, and travel to the excitement of London, is an adventure beyond my ken. They gave me life, and more importantly the courage to live it.
It's a long time ago and the world has changed, but I am almost the same as that long lost boy.