Ron Fawcett--Rock Athlete by Ron Fawcett

Author:Ron Fawcett [Ron Fawcett and Ed Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906148393
Publisher: Vertebrate Publishing
Published: 2011-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

* * *

Strawberries

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL EARLY SPRING IN 1980. It seemed every day dawned with a clear sky overhead. Midweek, I’d climb on the Yamaha after Gill had gone to lectures and dash down the A487 to Caernarfon in bright morning light. Then I would turn south, the power on, sunshine streaming through new leaves on the trees, leaning into corners, the road dry and grippy. When I reached Tremadog I would park the bike at the café under the crags for a brew, looking up at the sharply angled faces and arêtes across the road and chatting with owner Eric Jones while I drank my tea. Most of the clientele must assume he’s just the bloke who runs the café, but Eric is one of the great heroes of British climbing and adventure generally, whether soloing the north face of the Eiger, or base-jumping in Venezuela. He has also kept an eye out for generations of young climbers who show up at his café, desperate to make a name, including me. When I was finished, I’d leave my cup on the counter and go to work.

I loved Tremadog. In those days it wasn’t just an excellent place to climb when the weather in the mountains was bad. It was a crucible for some of the hardest routes being done in the country. The first new route I did there was Cream, done with Pete during the international climbing festival in 1976 when I turned twenty-one. Pete played his trick of snookering me into falling as I followed him up the second pitch. The following year I’d got rid of the aid point on Void, an excellent new climb on the edge of the powerful looming buttress most famous for Joe Brown’s route done in 1960 – Vector. But what I loved most about Tremadog was soloing there. The routes seemed to be made for me, long, flowing sequences on routes up to 250ft in length. The first ascent of Lord of the Flies is how people remember my contribution to the Rock Athlete series, but the opening credits of each programme showed me soloing a route called Tensor, on Craig y Castell, just above the village of Tremadog itself. Sid used the footage in slow motion, and in doing so caught something of the strange mixture of feelings you get while soloing high above the ground, of being calm but utterly focussed. I see myself totally absorbed and living intensely; it’s what I love about the sport.

My own soloing had started from the early days at Haw Bank and Crookrise, more out of necessity than any addiction to danger. I worked out colossal circuits of routes on all the crags near my home, and would run up onto the moors to get to them. When I moved to Ilkley, I brought that habit with me, and over the years developed a sequence of routes I felt comfortable soloing, like North-west Girdle, Western Front and Wall of Horrors at Almscliff, and something similar at Ilkley and Caley too.

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