Classic Rock - a 30 year adventure

It was over a year ago, March 2022, when we climbed this route but I’ve never written it up because I’d almost forgotten about it, though I see it ticked in the logbook. I remember that we parked at the usual Milestone car park overnight and set off promptly in the morning. The previous year, we’d made this same stroll up to Llyn Bochlwyd only to find a rain front descending the crag ahead, cross the lake to meet us and send us packing to Tre madog instead. On this day, it was fine and perfectly suited to high mountain cragging; but I wasn’t.  When I’m out in the mountains normally, I feel most alive and full of energy, physical and mental, but here I was trudging, hardly looking around and feeling lethargic. On arrival we warmed up by doing a route on alphabet slab and then took to the main event. I remember there being multiple options at numerous points that are all considered valid variations of the route; Gibson’s Chimney, The Rectangular Excursion, The Verandah. I can’t remem...

The initial garden pitch of Craig Dhu Wall Whenever we’ve travelled to North Wales for climbing, there’s been the idea that if the mountain weather ever turns against us, Tremadog will be there; where the sun always shines and even if it rains, you can take the 5 minute walk back to the car and sit it out, because this famous cliff dries again pretty much instantly. So, having never planned a visit, but with the drizzle putting us off the mountain VS routes of Idwal, we arrived at Craig y Castell, which had seemingly suffered an absolute soaking just minutes earlier. As I write this I’ve just read the blog from Anna Taylor, who was coming towards the end of her self-powered Classic Rock round at about the same time we were tackling the mighty Craig Dhu Wall. Congratulations Anna, an amazing feat to cycle between every route and climb them all in just 2 months. Seeing how much coverage you’ve received from mainstream sources as well as the climbing world makes me realise why we didn’t ...

“The test is negative…”, came the news down the phone. We’d presumed the result of the Covid test wouldn’t come back in time and we’d already cancelled the trip. But here was the all-clear to go for a proper weekend’s climbing for the first time in a year and despite not having packed or sorted gear out, we went from dropping our begrudged DIY and home plans to hitting the road in an hour. Typically polished hold on Milestone Buttress We’d heard the horror stories about parking in Wales but some of the classic Ogwen routes really appealed so we bagged the parking spot on the Friday evening and shared Milestone car park with a mixture of desperate adventurers and a stag-do that probably wasn’t allowed to visit Blackpool due to local restrictions, making do with hired camper vans instead. Enjoying a leisurely breakfast, we observed the busy car parks and laybys filling up with increasingly stressed and rule-stretching enthusiasts. It was easy to agree with some of the news articles about...

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 ...

Midge issues at 5:30am Of course, having a tick list shouldn’t blinker you from the other great possibilities around you. So for our next visit to The Pass, being midsummer, we planned a lengthy enchainment of crags from road to summit, incorporating 2 Classic Rock routes. The original version of the day saw a sensible breakfast time, safe in the knowledge that we could climb until 10:30pm if we needed to; no great rush. In the run up to the trip, the met office couldn’t agree for more than half a day what the weekend was going to look like, but the final forecast before Saturday looked good….. until about 3pm! Did we want to be climbing Main Wall in drizzle or even a potential thunderstorm? No, an alpine start seemed to be calling. Sleeping in the car has its downsides but a big advantage is not having to find a parking space. Others were already pulling up in the layby while we were pushing in our porridge and double brew at 4:30am. What time do you need to arrive to get a space? The...

Also known as the day the Ravens ate John's malt loaf. Out of all the classics so far, Flying Buttress in The Pass holds a strange place in my logbook. I’ve climbed the route 2.67 times and never had a dull visit; learning many lessons, making mistakes and gaining experience. The Cromlech is close enough to the road that you’d be able to see someone breaking into your car in the layby, but at the same time so remote that you’d be able to do nothing about it for an hour or two. It’s kind of a roadside crag but not a place to get caught out. In June 2004, Flying Buttress was my 6th multi-pitch lead and despite being a bit gloomy, was still a good day for climbing. Partner for the day, Hannah, was a little more experienced but we were definitely learning together and were pretty pleased with ourselves as she set up a belay at the top of pitch 3. Although a pair was ahead of us, they seemed experienced and were moving quickly.  As JG, their leader, shouted he was safe at the top of pit...

The next chapter of the 30 year Classic Rock sponsored climb continues.. Sorry if you love Craig Cywarch but looking in the guidebooks, we didn’t really fancy doing any other routes except the one in Ken Wilson’s rock bible. Instead we formed an optimistic plan to climb Will o’ the wisp in the morning and then drive over to Cadair Idris to do the Cyfrwy arete, because John thought “it looked good while I was flicking through the guidebook on the toilet”. After an evening drive up and car camp we made an early start to Will o’ the wisp via a steep but short walk-in. The guide says 6 pitches, but linking them wasn’t too much trouble, especially 1/2. Don’t believe the guidebook pitch lengths, they are way shorter. Sat on the belay ledge of the traverse, it dawned on us what was already so good about the Classic Rock challenge. On a busy bank holiday, where people were queueing on Snowdon and fighting over parking, here we were, with a crag to ourselves, overlooking a peaceful and stunning...

For about 12 years, a copy of the ubiquitous climbers' coffee table compilation Classic Rock has sat in our lounge, thumbed through and talked over but never seen as a tick-list. After an amazing sunny weekend in February 2019 which saw us experience 4 Classic Rock routes we realised that over that 12 years we'd inadvertently ticked off about 20 of them. It was soon suggested that since we were a quarter of the way through the book anyway, surely the obvious thing to do would be to "finish them off" and so a long-term ambition was born; a climbing partnership cemented for the long-haul. We're not the first to attempt it and we're not doing it quickly, or cycling between them or anything else that would make us unique. But we aim to finish them all at some point before we're too weak to do so. So join us on what may be a 30 year journey of snatched weekends and bits of family holidays as we experience all that Ken Wilson described as "Classic". As...