Capel Curig Meet 9-11th November 2012

Well this was a fun one…

The North Wales meet was planned slightly beforehand. The initial idea was to go to the Dinorwig slate quarry on the Saturday and Idwal slabs on the Sunday. The minibus was to follow the plan normally with Yas’ car joining us around midday Saturday and leaving early on the Sunday.

We got to the hut reasonably early and unpacked quite quickly. Interestingly we only found the downstairs bedroom when we were looking for the toilet. We had naturally picked the upstairs bunks. Everyone settled down for the night and went to sleep.

Saturday

It started quite well. We were up quite quickly and were out the door in relatively good speed. The plan however had been altered. The forecast was better for the Sunday, and given that it was raining with some dark clouds moving in we decided to go to Idwal slabs on the Saturday. We got to Ogwen cottage and had organised the gear for the day around 9.30-10ish. The walk-in was largely as you would expect and we were shortly at the base of Idwal looking at the routes. Josh had picked a HS that went up the left arête, I was going to follow after him before I started up a diff, and Tanner was leading a classic VD with Jim leading a group after him. Everything was going pretty well. We were moving at about the same pace as each other and the weather was good. Josh decided after the first pitch that the route was not good for him and that he was going to traverse over to my diff. Given the traffic on the route and getting seconds up, by the time he was ready to lead again up the diff it was too late to try. He unfortunately had to leave gear behind for the abseil but he got his group off safelyJ. Then Tanner went off route… Fixing this meant downclimbing and traversing. By the time he was in the right position he was running low on rope so had to make a belay in the middle of a pitch. The subsequent delay that this caused shut down the climbers on the VD for a few hours. Tanner brought up his seconds, and then while Jim was leading up to the stance Harry bravely led onwards to find another belay. By this point it had started raining and the routes were getting rather slippy, even to the point of danger in some cases. The belay stance however was already taken by some other climbers. Harry made a belay on the slab and to my knowledge started bringing people up. Most of this I know from talking to people as I was near the top of my route at this point.

From this point I can go on experience. I was asked to send down a top rope for the group stuck on the slab. Wanting to let the group above them through I allowed the leader to make his belay and bring up his seconds. He and his group were unfortunately was not the fastest at doing this. 10 minutes after he had ‘topped out’ the first second had still not set off and the group on the slab was getting impatient. I got a fair few pieces of gear quite quickly and set about making my belay. It was unfortunate for all of us that it was cold and raining as I took a long time to finish the rope-work with cold fingers and hands. I must however apologise to the group on the slab who were as I later found out, in a waterfall of sorts. Once the belay was set up and the rope had been lowered to the group everything started moving quite quickly and within 30-40 minutes everyone was up at the top of the route and we were tidying up to leave. Because of the delay it was starting to get dark. With only 4 head torches between 9 of us we were slightly screwed in this front and it didn’t show our preparation in any good light. The scramble up to get to the descent was about as wet as the slabs though, so every part was awkward and stretched the group out. It steadily got worse as the light dropped. Before long it was pitch black and we were climbing slabs covered in running water. Jim was part of the group highest up and with his ‘view’ of the next section he voiced serious concerns. With the group spread out over 3 ledges and not able to move between them at any speed the go ahead to call mountain rescue was given.

After the well-deserved comment about the lack of head torches, our situation was assessed and a group of people from the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue team were dispatched. Over the course of about 2 hours I managed to get the entire group together, using various belay stations and top ropes. We got everyone together and broke out the Bothy and survival bags. We had already seen torches that were most likely from mountain rescue and signalled to them our position. As everyone was starting to huddle under ‘canvas’ a larger train of torches came into view. While everyone was trying to stay as dry and warm as they could Harry and I were monitoring the progress of the MR team on their way to us. Torches appeared above us which could only be MR and we got ready to move. I’m foggy on names and can only remember a comment about everyone from the RAF being called John. At the top with us were 2 RAF Search and Rescue staff and a member of the Ogwen Valley MR. They assisted us to the top of the scramble. We waited there while they lowered us one by one down to the start of the ‘easy’ descent. At this point each of us was assisted down to the car park by one of the MR volunteers. By this time however it had been raining for over 4 hours. The river crossing just after the lower point was practically rapids. For a 5 meter stretch there were 3 people in position to help people across. I was last off the top and attached to the last person at the base of the ‘abseil’. The River section was mega slippy and fast flowing. Even if we had got to that point it would have been hell to get the group past it safely. When I got back to the car park I found that the minibus had already left. I was told that I would go with the MR van to their base for ‘debriefing’. I jumped in and after a short warm journey was at the MR hut.

While everyone else was by the fire eating pizza and soup I was quickly whisked off into the office to give them details and be debriefed. I gave them my account of what happened and sat dejected while they gave me in a very nice and kind but firm way, a pretty bad reaming. The rest of the night was spent eating and talking about the day. We hit the sack pretty quickly but given that we got back to the hut around 11-12ish, going to bed at 1 was fairly fast after cooking.

Sunday

The first alarm woke Jim and Tanner but almost no one else. Being kind I gave everyone else a half hour. After that time there was still no movement and I relented to Jim’s persistence and he started getting everyone up. Despite warming the kitchen up nicely few people had fully dry gear. I had dry clothes but my waterproofs, rack, harness and bag were all soaked. The doubles were all fairly sodden and still by the door. The clean-up effort happened relatively slowly and by the time we were finished it was around 10. The swap around with the plans meant that we were heading for the slate quarries but we had to detour via the Ogwen cottage to pick up a GPS left behind from Josh’s group while they waited for us to return. Somehow the car got lost and when we were in Llanberis looking for them they were still a distance behind us. As they had directions we went on and got to the quarry car park around 11-12ish. The return time was set for 4.30 at the bus and we set off for Australia. We were greeted at the looning the tube area by several climbers in their underwear being photographed for I believe a calendar. It was decided to continue up past this group, and past the pair on the ledge above them. We ended up at the sidings where we stayed for the rest of the day.

Several top ropes were set up but it didn’t take long for the leading fever to take over most of us and people were leading left right and centre. I don’t believe anything harder than 6a was sent but some pretty damn cool routes were lead nonetheless. I can’t quite tell if the slate bug bit anyone but Jim was happy to be back in his natural habitat on small ledges on slabs. The hours we had were short but we managed to get some sunlight and had a pretty good day in all honesty. As we were leaving we still had some light so Jim took about 6 people to look at Twll Mawr (Big Hole), the massive pit where the Quarryman was put up. When they got back we left and made pretty damn good time. We were eating at Telford by 8.15 and back in Leicester around 10.30. The bus was cleaned and dropped off before 11.30 :D.

A fairly interesting meet overall. One massive epic on the Saturday, that involved Mountain Rescue assisting us off the top of Idwal slabs and us being out on the rock for nearly 12 hours. And a pretty good day in the Quarries climbing sport in the sun. Needless to say we have learnt from the Idwal incident and it will not happen again, but in terms of epics it could have been a lot worse. Yes MR was called but no one was injured and we all made it off safe and sound.

Catch you on the flipside.