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An account of an attempt at Great Gully, Craig yr Ysfa, Carneddau.
By design, team BS found themselves in North Wales at Easter. Keen for grand adventures of the type described in The Good Book, edited by a certain K. Wilson, Easter Saturday saw them plodding up the service road en route to Craig yr Ysfa to tackle Great Gully. For this particular adventure, they were joined by mystery guest F who, it turned out, has a peculiar penchant for this kind of climbing.
Some steep descending and scree scrambling deposited the intrepid party at the base of the gully. It was soon evident that this was going to be a very wet grand adventure – there was considerable evidence of flattened vegetation in the gully and water flowing from its base.
Team member B took the ropes for the first pitch but the protection was such that all 3 team members were moving together on the whole rope length before the first piece of gear was placed. Eventually, a solid nut was placed shortly before a spike belay.
Mystery guest F then took the ropes and made short work of a rocky step and some gully scrambling before belaying under a dripping chockstone. Team member S was rather less taken with the step and there was much swearing and cursing as an alternative line was taken up the smooth gully wall. By contrast, team member B made the step easily, padded up the gully bed and wondered what all the fuss was about.
The ropes were once again swapped over, this time to team member S, for the pitch up to the ‘Door Jamb’ and an iffy belay. So iffy, the call was ‘Climb but don’t fall off’. The door jamb itself is a deep cave with water dripping from the edge and smooth, moss covered, walls on either side. The entire team wondered what to do next – the guide book mentions a human pyramid or a snow bank to surmount this obstacle, neither of which were options. An alternative option up a steep groove on the right was also mentioned.
The ropes were swapped back to team member B who tackled the groove, which was certainly steep and wet too. Quite a challenge in big boots. At the top of the gully, the way was less obvious. Going left looked to be too hard so right it had to be. This option had evidently seen the passage of feet before and some more protection was possible until a nervous shuffle across a wet and sloping grassy bank led to another belay of the ‘Climb but don’t fall off’ type.
The belay was outside the gully and probably off route. Eventually, the entire team were gathered on the small ledge and, again, wondered what to do next. From our position, the next moves were far from clear but despite this uncertainty mystery guest F took the ropes again and stepped out to lead the pitch. The first few moves were easy but unprotected but then it was onto wet rock again. After some deliberation, mystery guest F took a rocky chimney option and did much of it before declaring ‘This is too hard for me’. At much the same point, team member S asked ‘What is the time?’ It turned out to be about 4PM and a quick sum confirmed that it had taken something like 3.5 hours to get to a stop point on the 5th pitch with another 4 pitches and the crux still to come. Time for a mountaineering decision.
Whilst we were all equipped for a finish in the dark, it wasn’t an appealing prospect. So, mystery guest F lowered off and made himself secure to a handy spike. Much rope faffing followed as mystery guest F secured the ropes around the same spike. Team members B put himself on the rope, teetered back into the gully until below the spike before rappelling into the void below the door jamb, casually forgetting the dripping roof and moss covered walls, thus getting a good soaking. Team member S and mystery guest F followed. Further application of the same technique returned the entire team to the mouth of the gully but it had taken something like 2 hours to get there.
At the time of writing, team BS had still to return to Great Gully for another attempt. Mid-summer after a period of hot, dry weather currently looks favourite.
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