Groveling

Summer is usually the time when I start thinking more about mountaineering, and subsequently get shit at harder trad climbing. This year, alas, has been no different. After an awesome week in Wales, Pat and I returned to Swanage and got spanked by mental waves at Boulder Ruckle. Undeterred, I went back in a few days later with Luke, where the pair of us got utterly shafted by some godforsaken E1 roof monstrosity. Seconding, I overcame the crux by dynoing for Luke's aid sling and hauling myself up hand over hand like some blubbering army reserve reject, only too aware of the '15 pieces but they're all terrible' belay I was hanging from. Nice bit of El Cap training then.

The next week I headed back up to Wales with a mate from work, this time with the intention of sticking to big easy mountain routes, hillwalking, and doing manly things like drinking whisky and quoting Hemingway. The weather was awful but this didn't really change anything. We did a link-up of stuff in Cwm Idwal, hiked over the Carnedd hills, climbed a horrendous slug-filled chimney on Milestone Buttress. Then things cleared up and we got two perfect days, managing routes on Craig yYsfa and the east face of Tryfan. Despite Jake's relative inexperience we moved super quick, which was encouraging for bigger stuff later this year.

After cruising such easy routes I was slightly concerned that getting back onto hard stuff would be a bit of a shock. Nonetheless, Luke and I decided to head over to North Devon for a couple of days and hit the Culm coast; anything to get away from Swanage bloody Swanage was fine by me. First up we abbed down one of the awesome Sharpnose fins and tackled a classic steep crack climb called Lunakhod. Sustained and almost 50m long, it took us a lot longer to get up than expected. By the time we were both on top the tide was coming in fast, and of course you couldn't just top out from where we were, there was a vertical ridge of grass in the way. So we lowered off some tat and paddled back to the ab rope to decide what to do. Another route was out of the question; the lower walls were getting damp, and in any case the belayer would probably end up drowned.

"Let's just swim for it," said Luke.

I looked at the sea, saw waves breaking against the fins, hidden boulders lurking, unpredictable currents...

"Or," I replied, "we could not.

In the end we perched on a high rock, water running over our feet, and jugged up the static. This was sodding knackering.

It was late evening by now but we still wanted to get something else done. In the end we went with a twilight ascent of Wrecker's Slab, a 150m sheet of nightmare choss and vegetation. The descent was down a steep ridge of nettles and scree, fucking horrible. Luke seemed to regret his choice to stay in shorts. At some point he also realised he'd forgotten his headtorch, the one bit of kit we really couldn't do without. So we agreed the leader would wear mine and the second grovel in darkness.

Luke shimmied up the first pitch just before it got properly dark, racing through massive runouts, trying not to pull on all the dodgy holds. I took pitch 2 and climbed in a tiny circle of light, surrounded by blackness and the sound of crashing waves. Gear was rusty pegs and a couple of wires lower down. I shuffled up, not wanting to weight the cliff lest the whole heap of shite came tumbling down with me in the middle of it. By the time I reached the belay ledge the last peg was miles below. Luke followed, basically cranking on whatever he could feel and smearing his feet. I then seconded him up the final pitch, guessing where holds might be, rattling the rope to hear where the next runner was. It was one of the most atmospheric climbs I've ever done.

The next day we hiked over to Baggy Point in the boiling heat and did some easy stuff. I have to say I was pretty disappointed by the crag, all friable slabs and tufts of grass everywhere. God knows why people rave about the place. After ticking some scrappy Severes we downclimbed some Diff to reach the start of a route called Kinkyboots.

It was absolutely fucking horrific.

Yeah, the first bit was a good laugh. You basically had to stand on the edge of a zawn and fall across the gap, hoping you were tall enough to reach the beckoning jugs. If you weren't you'd plummet into space, it's not the most reversible of moves. Luke led it quickly enough, then pulled across an overlap on the main slab and disappeared from sight. I could hear snatches of what he was saying; things like "fuck me this is nails", "fuck me the gear's shit", "fuck me it's sweaty" and "fuck me we're going to die".

He eventually reached the belay after a somewhat harrowing traverse. The anchors made unnerving noises when tugged. I climbed the steep first section OK, pulled onto the slab with a bit of a struggle, and immediately wished I hadn't.

Luke was miles off to the right, perched on a sloping ledge, looking unhappy. The slab was the chossiest pile of wank I'd ever seen. It made Wrecker's Slab look like a granite tor. I tried to find the line of the second pitch but couldn't see anything obvious. The guidebook said you had to climb up to and around a huge detached flake and improvise from there. Well isn't that fucking great, I thought. There were about 700 flakes that fitted the description, the entire top half of the slab was made out of the buggers, detached flakes as far as the eye could see.

Rather than follow the traverse to the belay only to reverse it again (something else the guide suggested; I was beginning to wonder if some kind of cruel prank was going on), Luke clipped the gear to one of the ropes and zipped it across to me. I started crawling upwards. Fuck knows where to go next. I yelled to a climber standing on top and he said something like "Just climb the really dodgy block the size of a table with no visible attachment". Brilliant.

I fumbled higher, placing crap gear, dehydrated, wishing the route would just get it over with and kill me already. The block loomed above. I teetered on an edge beneath it, gave it a tap, was appalled by the flex, by the noise it made. The guy shouted something about other climbers putting cams behind it. Crazed laughter burst from my ragged lips, as hollow as the rock I clung to. With some ghastly contortion I wormed past the flake, somehow not weighting it, slithering through a gap, prepared to sell my black soul without hesitation for one solid jug, just one. Finally, with a huge runout, I hauled myself up the final sods of grass to the top and lay there gasping and sobbing, bowing before the belay stakes like they were long lost idols. Luke was relieved to get moving again after a long wait in the unmerciful sun.

We shook hands at the top and vowed never to speak of it again.