OFF THE WALL

Feed from OFF THE WALL

Crib Goch Motorway

Shoulder still whinging so it’s a no climbing trip to Snowdonia. No matter: It’s November and it’s all wet and greasy.

‘-What shall we do?
-Let’s wander about a bit.
-What? No summit chasing and route marching? – promise?’

So Baz and I wandered about a bit above Ynys Ettws where we found a gold frog, a starry blue gentian and solitude. As we came up into Cwm Glas Bach the cloud twisted away from the summits to reveal a more populated spot. On Crib Goch ridge there was a trail of forest ants - at least thirty figures, backs bent with rucksacks, making their way across the spine.

‘Look at those clouds move. I wouldn’t want to be up here in that wind.’
My words were tinged with jealousy though. At least they were touching rock.

Baz, with his 20 year knowledge of the place compared to my paltry 3 years, added his nugget:
‘It’s a very dangerous scramble .The world and his wife goes up there and as often as not gets into trouble. It kills people. It’s like an alpine ridge and if we were in the Alps it would be normal to rope up for it. Here, anyone can get to it and anyone goes on it, and they shit themselves. ‘

We sat and ate our sandwiches looking out to Anglesey, listening to the waterfalls and streams in the Cwm and the drifting voices from above.
Later, in the Pub, we met one of the forest ants and his tale echoed that of Baz’s.

‘There was a bloke there with his wife. She was petrified. Stuck.’

‘Why would anyone want to do that to their relationship?’ I wondered. And why take such huge risks?

Sunday brought clear skies and a walk on the Glyders with hazy mountain views for miles. Stopping for a bit of shelter from a crazy wind on the way down, we met more forest ants from the previous day. It was like Baz had ordered them as part of a menu.

‘Our book says it’s a walk, and describes it as ‘challenging in winter’. We haven’t done anything like it before and we had to dig deep. I wasn’t happy. There was a husband there who dragged his wife over it even though she was obviously terrified. And a father and son who were also having difficulties.’

We all tutted and wondered why there was nothing anywhere to warn non-climbers about its extreme exposure.

Is it a good thing that the health-and –safety-risk-averse society we live in doesn’t nanny us in the wild places of the UK?
Or is it a bad thing that we’ve been nannied so much we are now unable to carry out our own risk assessments?

Posted by fishinwater