Carte Blanche

Carte Blanche

A tour of the UK July 1988.

Most people like to think that they have done something that nobody or at least very few other people have done. I once climbed on Cornish granite one afternoon and on Scottish granite the following morning. I like to think that is a fairly unique achievement especially because it was totally unplanned.

It all started thanks to a disaster that occurred on the way back to Newcastle after a day spent climbing on our home patch in Northumberland. I’d just nodded off when an obscenity from George woke me up.

“The f****** steering wheels stuck”. I ignored him, suspecting it was a wind up and tried to get back to sleep. More obscenities followed and I couldn’t help but notice that despite his best efforts, the car seemed stuck in a gentle but inexorable turn to the left. When the turn showed no signs of ending even although the road was now straight I had to concede that George probably wasn’t taking the mick. Fortunately the brakes were working and when our course took us into someone’s driveway we stopped to assess the situation. The car definitely looked out of sorts. It was perceptibly slightly bent and sagging in the middle and when the AA man arrived we learned the technical term for this. “Your chassis has snapped in two mate”. He said, and even to my non-car owners ear this didn’t seem the sort of thing you could fix with a bit of chewing gum and a rubber band.

So it looked like next week’s trip to Wales would have to be cancelled but I had reckoned without George’s powers of persuasion. He was on the ‘phone the next day to say that Sally was off to the Alps and we could borrow her car and even better she said we could go anywhere we liked. If only she’d known!

The week began in Wales as originally planned. We started off in the Quarries and George pointed me at a little route called Grandad's Rib an E1 5c which was where the trip nearly ended, at least for me. I’m sure George would have carried on after informing the proper authorities. He said it had only got the one hard move. Well, I’d never led a 5c before so I wasn’t too sure but it was only a short route and I could see it even had a bolt or a peg in it. I can’t remember which, but I assumed, wrongly as it turned out that it would be where the hard move was. So off I went, all went well, I clipped the pro and carried on. It didn’t seem too bad at all and then to George’s consternation and my horror, the next thing I knew I was almost horizontal with my left heel hooked over the top of the crag and my right hand on a good hold slightly lower down. I wasn’t sure what I could do but I sure as hell knew what gravity was about to do. In sheer desperation, George later admitted he was just about bricking it when I dropped a leg into space and reached up for the top. It was flat but there was no going back and after a brief but titanic spell of scrabbling, lunging and God knows what else I did a sort of Western roll and flopped onto the top. Much later when I’d recovered, George led a couple of E2s in Bus Stop Quarry and we met our friends in The Vaynol.

The next day dawned wet. We spent the morning exploring some caves in the Quarries, drove to Tremadog and had a look at Carrygheldrym. Heading back to The Pass, the sun came out and we stopped off at The Grochan. We did Nea and then watched the free entertainment provided by a rope of four students who had a minor epic on Spectre.

The following day was dry but very windy so we went back to Bus Stop Quarry where the same collegiate gentlemen were once again providing the entertainment. One lad who failed to lead Solstice loudly put the blame on last night’s beer. His mate then tried to show off by soloing it. He tried five times each time backing off very low down and each time loudly exclaiming either “I’ve done this before you know” or “I think I’ve lost my bottle today!”

Sensing that nothing could top that performance and with the weather apparently worsening again, we decided to move on. So where to go? I suggested the Lakes, but then George reminded me that Sally had said we could go anywhere we liked.

So the next morning we set off to call on Robin Saxby in Bristol but driving through Leicestershire we saw an enormous blackish coloured crag. Amazingly George had the guidebook for it and said it was called Llanymynach. It’s in a very pretty area but really that’s all I could find to say about it. We did one route Black Wall Direct E2 5b which was pleasant enough but it was all pretty dirty rock.

After our social call in Bristol it seemed a pity to leave the area without doing a climb somewhere in the South West and as Sally had said we could go anywhere we drove westwards until we reached North Devon. Our first port of call was Baggy Point where we did a VS called Kinky Boots.

Then we had a look at a sea cliff at Bude, which psyched us out so completely that we did nothing. Then we thought it would be a shame to have come this far south and not visit Cornwall and after all, Sally had said we could go anywhere. So that night we found ourselves drinking in the First and Last at Sennen.

The next day the weather was damp and misty and it was lunchtime before the sun came out. Fancying an easily accessible crag we went to Bosigran and did Suicide Wall E1 5c. It’s a lovely climb although I wasn’t impressed with the seagull that insisted on dive bombing me when I was struggling on the crux. By now the week had taken on the characteristics of a whistle stop tour and as we walked back to the car we were already wondering where to go next.

We couldn’t go any further South or West, well not without our passports, so there was no alternative but to head back up North. The forecast for the next few days was good so we thought the Lakes would be a good idea. I fancied a go at Central Buttress or maybe Centaur on the East Buttress of Scafell. George reckoned that if he drove overnight we’d reach Wasdale first thing in the morning and there would be just enough time for a quick visit to Chudleigh as well. Maybe it was because our thoughts were on the long journey ahead, but we weren’t too impressed with Chudleigh and left after a few minutes of desultory bouldering.

As it turned out George underestimated both his ability to stay awake and the top speed of Sally’s car so it was only just after midnight when we reached the Kendal junction on the M6. If we stopped here we’d have four hours to wait for dawn. We didn’t fancy the wait so we just kept heading north. At 1am we reached Carlisle and I suggested going to Galloway. George wasn’t too keen and said what about stopping when the sun came up? And so we drove on. I fell asleep somewhere near Arrochar and my next memory was of George asking if I fancied doing a route on the Etive Slabs. It was 4.30am and we were at the southern entrance to Glencoe. How on earth George managed to stay awake I’ll never know, but then when there was a crag to be driven to he never did worry about anything as trivial as sleep.

After a short nap, a quick brew and a sandwich we walked up to the Crag and not surprisingly, for it was only 9am, we had the place to ourselves. We were up and down Spartan Slab, a very enjoyable VS, well before lunch. We were quite pleased with ourselves; after all it’s not every day you do Suicide Wall in Cornwall in the afternoon and Spartan Slab in Glen Etive the next morning.. Before we left, the first of the day's visitors, a couple of Scots lads, arrived and we chatted for a few minutes, hoping that they would ask the question climbers always ask each other when they meet. Sure enough one of them did, “So, what did you do yesterday then”. I told them and not wanting to appear boastful, said, “Oh just Suicide wall at Bosigran”with as much sang-froid as possible. I had a feeling they didn’t quite believe us and probably considered we were just a couple of sassenach gobshites.

After a big lunch in the Kingshouse, George thought that it would be nice to visit his sister who was living and working in Scotland at the time. So off we went to Dundee to socialise, have a bath and a good nights sleep. The following day, Saturday, was our last day but here was still time for a route at nearby Birnam Quarry where George led Spandau Ballet an E3 6A, his first ever at the grade. After resisting the temptation to call in at Bowden Doors as we passed Belford, a hectic week came to an end when we arrived home at 8pm.

We hadn’t done a great number of routes, only about fifteen I think, but we’d experienced almost every type of climbing that Great Britain offers. We’d climbed on limestone, sandstone, granite and rhyolite in six counties spread over three countries. We’d climbed on gear and bolts on sea cliffs, on roadside crags, on mountains and in quarries and even done some bouldering. We’d each managed our hardest ever leads and all that was left now was to explain to Sally about the extra 2500 miles on her clock, but then she did say we could go anywhere.