Month: June 2010

I went for a little after work climb on Sunday with Martin and Llion, we headed up to the Slate, as at least it had the potential to be dry after the showers earlier on. As we drove up the weather look OK, and walking in to the quarries we met the new security guards, they look gnarlly!

We managed to climb Goose Creature, looning the Tube and Off the Beaten Track. For the most part it was dry, however after we got to the bottom of the Off the Beaten Track it started spitting, not to be put off, and having made Llion climb the top of Waves of Inspiration in the rain, and of course Martin had the flash flood when he was on Bardsey Ripple, it only felt fair that I should get on the route, after all it was only spitting.

By the second bolt the rock was getting wet and by the top it was soaked, I had to make some pretty desperate move to make the final traverse, but made it with slipping off. The rain then really came down to help further soak poor llion and martin still at the bottom of an E3 Slate slab with water running down it!

Martin warmed us up with Jaffa Cakes and then it was down to the Fricsan for a beer. Three things struck me firstly the sign, secondly the awesome rainbow and then finally the music. We only heard the sound check but the group they had in were awesome, I will have to see when they are next playing and try and get my arse down there!

Spent another weekend working at Plas Y Brenin, this time on a Moving Outside course, which looks at turning indoor climbers into outdoor climbers in a weekend. In essence we concentrate on looking at top roping and setting up belays, so that they can safely go out to a single pitch belay and set a rope up and  climb.

We did lots of climbing the first day, staring at the RAC boulders before heading onto Bus Stop, I had planned to go to Fachwen but the car park was full. The group climb equinox, solitice and Gnat Attack, a great effort for there first day, as well as looked at some rigging.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon at Fachwen going over rigging bottom ropes and then moved onto top ropes. The weather was ace so we stayed out for our 5.30, missing tea and cakes. Typically it was cream buns!

The next day we went to Willy’s crag in Ogwen and then back to the Centre when it rained to use the training wall. I did head out climbing after work but thats another story!

I spent the day babysitting for Llion and El’s lovely daughters, part of the deal that will allow Llion to head to the states so a necessary evil, and one that isn’t as bad as it may sound. I took them to Foel Park Farm, and they loved it.

Feeding the goats, lambs and horse and cuddling bunnies and having a go on the bumpy tactor and Quad bikes. I returned back, and was just as tired as them. However that’s not going to make me any strong!

Well, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, finally Big Brother has admitted defeat and hung up the towel, however before they go we have to sit through both Big Brother 2010, and then the shocker that the last housemate standing doesn’t get to go home, but has to fight it out against the Best of the best Big Brother and Celebrity BB.

I watch the latest bunch of fools enter the house and decided that I would give my first impression. Be warned they are harsh, but I think anyone putting themselves up for this type of programme need thick skin. So in the order they went in.

Josie had the most impressive set of bingo wings I have seen in a while, she will surely regret shaking her arms in teh air, as bits of her body were about a second behind the rest of her!

Steve, ‘Fucking Hell’, you’re live on Big Brother Please Do not swear.

Ben, I am not posh, but you sure as hell didn’t get that speech impediment in a council estate.

Rachel, Beyonces Knowles fatter twin.

Nathan a non-descript joiner

Dave an Alcoholic minister, and probably one of the best advertisements for being, or becoming athiest I have ever seen.

Cadtfsyd or Cleaver as it seemed to be pronouced, how the hell you spell it I don’t know and don’t particularly care.

Govan, bitch and sensitive, and so far in the closet he’s in Narnia.

Shabby by name and by nature, and will probably try to claim squatters rights to the house when she is asked to leave!

Sunshine, yes that is her name, I prefer the welsh Haf, meaning summer. Anyway she’s powered by pixie dust and so far up her own arse she probably hasn’t seen any sunshine for a while.

Corin was so dark for a white girl she out coloured Govan, She looked like she had drowned in a vat of Fake tan, that or been swimming in the gulf of mexico.

Then Final the big twist, Mario, picked at random or so we are lead to believe, and instantly given the impossible challenge of being Big Brothers Mole, and to make it harder dressed up in a mole suit with a big sign round his neck saying ‘I am a Mole’, as he was picked at random I give him a hi chance of success.

Although my favourite housemate has to be The Tree, that has now been fashioned into a rather badly made chest of draws!

Anyway, bring on the freak show.

For the last couple of days I have been doing some morning shifts at the new Cafe at Pen Y Pass, if you haven’t been there in the last couple of weeks then you probably won’t recognise the place from the inside. The previous cafe was stuck in a 1970’s timewarp, the counter looked like something out of open all ours and the food was basic to say the least, the booth seating was taken from a motorway services of a similar generation.

It looks amazing now, and the food is no longer just re-heated pasties, and scoulding over priced tea is no longer served in polystyrene cups. Instead a fantastic open plan counter and kitchen greet you as you come in along with smiling faces, of the staff.

The Cafe is an off shoot of Caban in Brynrefail, that is a ‘social entreprise’, where the main emphasis is on employing people long term as well as providing a quality menu. A menu that yesterday I was thrown in at the deep end, and left to cook for the visitors. My background as a chef has been in the large part home based cooking for friends, in particular the manager of the Pen Y Pass cafe Huw, who roped me into working up there to save some money to go away on an extended trip latter on in the year.

I have always enjoyed cooking, and have found doing it for paying customers just as enjoyable. As well as preparing the food to order, I have also been making industrial sized quantities of food. First up was Dark and White chocolate Hob-nob Cookies, which as the chef I of course had to taste, and they got my seal of approval, and today I made up a massive chilli. Again the type of food I have often served for friends, and something that I don’t think they would have turned there noses up at.

The main problem of course of doing two extra days work a week, is that I no longer have five days off to go climbing, and the weather hasn’t been playing ball. So whilst I had planned to go out after work yesterday, the rain did nothing to help!

I hope that a few of my readers and friends try to come up to the cafe, the parking is quite limited, however come about lunchtime midweek the car park starts to empty of the ‘early risers’ for Snowdon, and there is enough space to risk the drive up. There is of course the Sherpa Bus up from the village, and if you have some kids and its a sunny day, then a ride in the open top bus up the pass is a great attraction in its own right, do check the timetable thoroughly though, as they can be rather fickle.

Whilst you might not want to walk all the way up Snowdon the Miners track is a lovely path to follow to the first or second lake you came across, and actually not very steep. You could even get a pushchair along it for at least a mile!

Well, I have to say i am mainly unaware of the incident mainly because I had just opened the second can of beer. However I doubt I would have responded to this rescue for several reason, one I was work the next day and two I personally felt it was unneccessary.

Two climbers cragfast on Great Slab, how two climbers can become cragfast is somewhat of a mystery. Assuming they have a rope, more than likely two for Cloggy routes, plus a rack. So if they could no longer go up then surely a self rescue in the form of a multipitched abseil would have been more than possible. I should add that there were two to three hours of daylight left.

Instead the rescue team was tasked with rescuing them. So I can assume, and as we know it can make an ass of U and Me, but for the purpose of this rant, it is better to assume though. Those assumptions are that either the climbers were a. Totally incapable of rigging a multipitch abseil, or b. to tight to want to leave behind their own rack or of course c. both.

If a. is assumed then WTF are they doing on Cloggy, if it was b. and I had turned up to rescue them I think I would have d. given them a fucking bill or e. abseiled off leaving there entire rack behind to show them how easy it was.

I had this conversation with some other local climbers and one told how he had topped out on a Lakes Crag, and had to crawl down in the dark rather than call for a rescue.

It just made me wonder just how many people out could have got themselves off the crag or would have called a rescue rather than leave a few runners and slings behind? I would like to think that I could have managed it!

I spent the weekend working at Plas Y Brenin, directing a Discover Scrambling Course for two Clients. We had a great weekend, and manage to make ascents of Tryfan and Crib Coch, as well as looking at the emergency use of a rope for scramblers. Saturday was a scorching day on Tryfan’s North Ridge, before descending with the ocassional use of the rope, on a few of the trickier steps. We got back early and did some rope work on the ski slope.

The Sunday was set to be a bad weather day, so we headed out with a plan in my head to teach the students some sound mountaineering decisions. The plan was to make our way up to the start of the knife edge ridge of crib coch, and see what the weather was doing, and if it was bad turn round and use the new rope skills in descent.

Fortunately the weather was great, so we made the decision to travese the Knife-edge ridge of Crib Coch. As we reach the first pinnacle the rain started to set in, with a few drops a minute to start with, we sat and had lunch at Blwch Coch and made a decision that to continue with teh weather deteriorating would be foolish, so headed down the lee slope towards the PYG track, and walked back to Pen Y Pass, where we did some more ropework before hitting the new Cafe at Pen Y Pass.

This was mentioned on UKC, I thought it was very funny so linked to it here!

Well, I have had a mixed set of results with the Sherpa Bus this week. Of course the Bus not turning up was a gem. We then parked in Nant, and quickly got a bus up on Wednesday, then yesterday I was meant to go to work at Pen Y Pass, and looked up the timetable on the the Internet, and genius there was a Bus Scheduled to leave the llanberis international bus intercahnge and 15.30, which would get me to work just before my 4pm shift.

Having walked down the high street to the interchange the timetable was totally different to what they advertised online. In particular the 15.30 bus had been scratched from the service, so I had to walk back to the other end of the village to then drive up. How hard can it be for an umbrella organisation like the Snowdonia Green Key to have the correct information online and on the ground?!

Someone seems to be sat in an office with there head up there arse, the Green Key and Sherpa Buses are ‘Essential’ for the tourist in North Wales, and making sure they run smoothly should be a top priority for Gwynedd Council and the National Park (I know there are more councils involved but for Snowdon and the Pass it is these two organisation where the buck should stop.

There is an interesting article by Elfyn Jones from the BMC, I like Elfyn, but I find his article rather political and quite restrained. The Sherpa Bus service is barely fit for service, I was up at Pen Y Pass working and the number of walkers having to wait an hour for a lift back to there car, and not to mention the cafe still getting customers till about 8pm.

The green key scheme is even worse, as despite a transport group predicting a rise in visitors and cars to the park, rather than increase parking the scheme has effectively reduced it. At what point that became a good idea, I will never known. The parking has been ridiculous this week. With car overflowing out of llanberis, parking along the verges of Nant Peris and overflowing out of the park and ride, despite there being a field that looks more than suitable for an overflow car park.

As for the Pen Y Grwyd area the recent works has effective just move the parking problem down the hill to where the road is narrower and less able to cope with verge parking, and on more than one occassion it has turn this major artery to a single lane.

Elfyn is also stuck to a BMC line, where we as climbers don’t want to be the group that upset the apple cart, however the suggestion that we pay up £10 a day for parking is tantamount to daylight robbery. Interesting unless there is a notice displaying the Bye-law that covers the car park, to allow charges thenany parking charge is voluntary, and any fine illegal. Certainly Pen Y Pass £10 charge is just taking the piss, illegal and I urge people not to pay it. Similarly the roadside machines at Pen Y Gwyryd don’t seem to have a Bye-law displayed, and Ogwen Cottage is also a ‘voluntary’ pay and display. You might get a sticker on your vehicle, but any fine should be seen as illegal, and worth contesting.

I also have to disagree with Elfyn that the Sherpa bus is in his words ‘Quite Good and cheap’. Yes £1 is cheap but I am not sure that quite good is a valid description. Try and catch a bus from the centre of llanberis and the service is limited and poor, yet at the far end at the interchange the service is totally different. The timetable is a total mess, with contradiction between the real world, what is advertised at the bus stop and what is advertised online.

My advice from having tried to use the service is to park in nant to climb in llanberis pass and get off at the cromlech boulders, as the the number of buses is even higher than those available from llanberis. Surely all the buses should simply do a big loop from pen y pass to llanberis high street and back again.

Anyway, working a 4 to 9 shift at Pen Y Pass, I can’t actually get to work and back on the Buses!

Last night I was running a training session for the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, the general aim was to familiarize them with the complex layout of the Slate Quarries, so should we have to rescue a walker, mountain biker, climber or paraglider, then we should be able to respond with lightning efficiency.

The train was thrown upon me at the last moment as the planned helicopter training was shelved thanks to a crazed Lakeland gunman going on a Kill Bill style murder fest. I saw Jedwood on the TV last night and instantly thought why couldn’t they have been in Whitehaven yesterday! (Too Soon?).

Anyway we managed to get permission to drive around the quarries, making the training a little quicker, although after two hours we still hadn’t managed to get up to Australia, it was however a great evening for a evening off-roading along the main quarry track.

Hopefully the team will now be up to date with developments the quarries, and I need to speak to Si Panton, about supplying the PDFs for the new guide as an interim measure. One thing that did help the training was an aerial photograph from Get Mapping, basically a company that supplied the source images to Google Earth, who downgraded them for the web.

The aerial shot of the quarries allowed a very accurate layout to the quarries, something that OS has failed with in the past, and more importantly it let us look at relative distances and realise that certain entrance points are simply a very long hike away from anywhere. I have to thank Mr Harding for allowing me to have the Slate sample, although the team does have a disc drive with all of north wales on for their use.

It seems like I need to get that disc as I offered to make an idiots guide to access each are in case of a rescue. So so time on illustrator for me then! Also Tom if you read this, can I have the images for the quarries behind Llanberis please, as the teams disk drive of  images is probably under a pile of other stuff meant for the team, at someones house!