• This topic has 23 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by dazh.
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  • Non-Rescue on Tryfan
  • hairylegs
    Free Member
    qwerty
    Free Member

    Common sense prevailed!!! The trouble with common sense and the majority, is that its not that common. 😉

    scuttler
    Full Member

    And they have a mini-adventure and good pub story to boot.

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    martinhutch
    Full Member

    If they hadn’t carried all that crap up the route, they wouldn’t have been so slow and got benighted in the first place! 😀

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    I read that last night – a great tale, and as folk said a really pragmatic response from climbers and team.

    Many years from now…
    ‘Now then kids, when I was a lad, climbing in Wales….’

    scuttler
    Full Member

    Aw come on Martin – you know the inverse relationship between route difficulty and gear/faff.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    I’m only kidding. I can think of worse places to spend the night than the ledge under Yellow Slab (which is tricky at VD, and definitely so in the wet). I hope they cuddled up to stay warm. 🙂

    hairylegs
    Free Member

    Many years from now…
    ‘Now then kids, when I was a lad, climbing in Wales….’

    I had to laugh at this. I was at Bangor Uni in the late seventies/early eighties and getting benighted on a climb was like a rite of passage!

    Trouble is that many folk nowadays don’t view it that way, and the slightest hint of trouble and it’s a call to MR

    If they hadn’t carried all that crap up the route, they wouldn’t have been so slow and got benighted in the first place!

    Realise that’s massively tongue in cheek, but on a serious note, if you aren’t equipped to be able to spend the night out on the hill, you’re not properly equipped!

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    The adage goes that if you carry the gear, you’re going to end up using it. 🙂

    Six pitches or so on a winter day can easily turn into an all-nighter if you’re slow on the route and slow at the changeovers. Sounds like they were planning a bivvy at the top of the route anyway.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    First Pinnacle Rib is a Diff not a Very Diff, isn’t it?. I lead yellow slab in me big mountaineering boots and it did require a bit of trust.

    with a bivvy on route, just sounds like a proper alps day out to me.

    Surfmatt

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Just looking up the (current) grade on UKC, and this has popped up on the logbooks for 8th Jan..

    A wet and foggy day started in new mountain boots both the rock and my boots were extremely slippy led 1st pitch very carefully then Lee led 2nd pitch and on the start i had my first fall had to rely on a polished sloping foothold but as soon as i put any weight on it my foot slipped off just as i got my fingertips on the handholds which would have got me up slid almost to the bottom before rope caught me skinned my shins and knees! I had two further slips trying something different before going back to my original plan and slowly got up I led 3rd pitch but had to change to rock shoes 3/4 of the way up it as my boots on the wet and greasy rock were lethal things got a lot easier then until we went too far right near the pinnacle had to descend back to ledge near the pinnacle as it was going dark we had to spend the night by the pinnacle before finishing the route in the morning not sure about the diff grade on ukc definitely a vdiff like it says everywhere else

    Nice little epic..

    adsh
    Free Member

    Brought back a long forgotten memory of my first multi pitch lead on Buchaille Etive Mor. We chose a long VD that turned out to be a very ‘Scottish VD’ the clue being that it was climbed later than many others.

    Coming across an obvious abseil retreat 2/3 of the way up didn’t help confidence nor the fact that my experienced mate bottled all leads after this.

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    God help us as a society. Who takes rock shoes on Tryfan? Alright I’m a wimp and took my harness for Munich wall but other wise it’s rope round the waist and a few MOACs. And that’s coming from a VS on a good day leader. When we find out how to ban mobiles from working cars can we take the trench to mountains as well. Good on them.
    (Wanders off muttering about Galibier boots)

    globalti
    Free Member

    Those classic rib and gully routes up Tryfan’s east face must be terribly polished nowadays; I wouldn’t attempt them in the wet.

    In about 1978 we stumbled across a massive cave on the NW flank of the mountain, absolutely huge and well used by the look of it. Anybody else know it?

    BadlyWiredDog
    Full Member

    You’d think they’d just ab off and walk the half mile or so back to the road eh. But none of us was actually there, so fair enough.

    B.A.Nana
    Free Member

    BadlyWiredDog – Member
    You’d think they’d just ab off and walk the half mile or so back to the road eh. But none of us was actually there, so fair enough.

    Not saying it was the case here, but I suspect a lot of low grade climbers in the UK have little or no experience of abseiling in the field, as part of a day out or as self rescue. Pretty much every climb in the UK can be simply walked away from on an easy path, so the vast majority probably feel no compulsion to learn or practice. Would probably be difficult to compel people to practice it in anger as well, because of it’s potential risks and possibility of needing to sacrifice some equipment.
    I’ve experienced it first hand, finding a guy on a shelf, halfway up an easy climb, unwilling to climb the crux and unable to descend, that was fun.

    mattsccm
    Free Member

    Bet the learned to climb on a wall not like us old men. Mum wouldn’t lend me her washing line, said it was to good. Baling string was all we had. The sisal type.
    Seriously you do see a lot of newish climbers with no hill skills due to the way people start nowadays. Wonder if that had anything to do with it? Any way, well done to them for not being walked down.

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Baling String? Luxury!

    All I had was knotted together hairbrush scrapings…

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Pfffft, I stamp my hobnails in your general direction while waiting to second my lead on a trad Joe Brown route.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    I’ve had two epics on Tryfan.

    The first put me off scrambling and the second put me off climbing for good.
    🙂
    Some things are just not meant to be.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Mrs_oab got herself hypothermic on Tryfan too.
    And I’ve stood and watched our uni minibus being broken into and all the overnight gear stolen…
    And did a classic ab off for my ML, only to find the anchor loose…as were my bowels as a pal stood on the anchor until I was safe.

    Ahhhhh, happy days.

    mt
    Free Member

    What I always liked about climbing on Tryfan (back int day) was it meant an early visit to the pub.

    dazh
    Full Member

    I never got on with Tryfan. Tried to climb Grooved Arete twice. FIrst time was inexperienced at multi-pitching and got hopelessly lost so abbed off to avoid benightment. Second time we knew where we were going but it started pissing down two pitches in so abbed off again. One day I’ll go back and finish it.

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