Stitched Up...

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I was talking to a couple who are staying at our cottage for a couple of nights, about climbing, which is one of their principal reasons for visiting the area. I went off on one as usual, recounting the tale when Bryan - my climbing partner and erstwhile employer, back in the mid-eighties - went out for a late afternoon's climbing on the Dervish slab of the Vivian Quarry in Llanberis. We decided on a route called Wendy Doll, then given the grade E2 5b, which starts with a low, upward-trending traverse from the centre of the slab, rightwards, on shallow scoops for footholds, towards the right edge of the slab.

Anyway, some two-thirds or so up the thing - I was seconding - I moved right, off route, and ended up standing on a ledge in a fifteen-foot-high corner left behind after a pretty large wedge of slate had obviously departed some years before. The only holds available were the thin finger crack at the back of the corner: ordinarily very do-able, except that I had several stitches in the palm of my right hand because of a slight accident at work that week. Lay backing up the thin crack-line with one-and-a-half hands proved too much, so I had to thrutch my way back out of the corner and onto the slab proper, to arrive at the famous overlap that is the most obvious feature of the Dervish slab, and thence ascend to join Bryan at the belay.

Of course, by this time, the afternoon - it being late Autumn - had turned to a very black, moonless night. Pretty much pitch black; and we still had to abseil off the damned thing, with no head torches or any other source of illumination. It was not my favourite experience of all time - shit-scared comes darned close - but we laughed about it over pints in The Padarn Lake Hotel afterwards. Weird though it is, as I said to my guests this evening, I really do miss that shit...

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