Nea - last day in The Pass

Despite having had a pretty long and tiring Saturday, we still had unfinished business before we could move on from the Llanberis chapter of our Classic Rock journey. On Sunday, we would have time to climb Nea on Clogwyn Y Grochan before the weather turned wet.

Nea wasn’t named as a play on words, but it is just that ... near… to the roadside parking; in fact the view from the route gives you an extraordinarily detailed picture of the many different types of people visiting the pass. Cyclists struggling up and flying down, increasingly frustrated drivers pulling into the layby, moving on and then coming back again because the others were full, selfies on boulders, 35 mopeds in some kind of mod procession. You certainly don’t get that “away from it all” feeling on this crag.

Pitch 1 of Nea looks grim; I doubt it ever dries out. Even so, the key foot placements seem to be on the dry patches, while you bridge over the slippery, seeping groove, all the while perfectly well protectable. An interesting balancy move leads right to the first stance… unless you climb past it and belay from within some awkward steepening bit, oops.

From here I felt my first real historical connection with the challenge, recognising the view from the photo in the book of the original Nea (Morin) on the first ascent in 1941. It felt like a privilege to link with the heritage of climbing folklore on this route, a bit like a football player getting to knock about at, maybe not Wembley but perhaps Notts County, in the sense that the venue is historic but not mind-blowing.

Spot the Climbers

The rest of the climb is decent without being spectacular, until the descent. How often do you get to do a full 50m abseil? A great way to take another view of the whole route as we made our way carefully around, over and through the 2 other pairs already climbing it.

I said we were finishing the Llanberis chapter of the challenge, but then we were reminded that although I did Spiral Stairs a while ago and me and John set up it in February, we actually messed up and finished up Better Things. I knew pretty quickly that what I was leading was too steep and tricky for a Diff but no corners around that part of the Cromlech are harder than VS so I just carried on up. At this stage we hadn’t decided to do the Classic Rock thing, otherwise I’d have retreated and gone round the corner. So we will have to go back there again some day and finish it for John. Maybe we’ll leave it until last since that’s where the whole idea began, as long as my 65 year old knees will be able to manage the walk up.