Yesterday I had arrange to go climbing with Llion, at midday I got the call from llion, ‘mark I have a problem, no tax on the vehicle’, ‘Llion I have a problem no keys for the van, they are at work!’. So it was back to the old school, thumbs at the ready, we hitched up the pass and young Geroge Ullrich pick us up, hoping to get a rope on a desperate new route possibility on a crag up the pass, so we hopped in and it only took five minutes of waiting to get up there.
Just as we arrived the drizzle started, the rock was still dryish so we warmed up on the roadside face of the cromlech, then on passed the heelhook traverse, before heading over to Browns crack area, by which time my finger tips were on fire, the cromlech rock is so painful on the tips. Simon Panton’s first topo in Northern Soul Fanzine had a diagram that joking had a morphine dispenser at the crag!
We then headed up to Utopia, where we lost the motivation, our tips getting the best of us so headed back to the road and got out thumbs out, walking down we saw the most awful mess, first a new high impact bridge, you’d have thought they were spanning something far more major with this structure, then down to the abandoned tent, which has been there over a week. I know this because we have chatted about it at work, where one of the staff eventually reported it to the police.
What has really annoyed me with the tent is that the National Park Wardens whom seem to do nothing tangible at Pen Y Pass, but several of which will pass by here everyday, have done nothing to tidy up the mess. Admittedly I was more pissed off with the owner of all the stuff simply abandoned at the side of the road, but surely the Wardens should try and step in with situations like this. I guess their normal attitude of not my problem was shining through, and they simply hid in their office at PYP.
Anyway does hitching mean the day was carbon neutral as the feul used belongs to another person(s) carbon footprint?
