RAIN in the Pass generally means Tremadoc. But where do you go if it’s raining at Tremadoc... Portmadoc café?... home? Of course not; you are hard and the logical thing to do is visit Hyll Drem.
As you peer at the approaching cliff through the deluge pouring down the minibus windows, you suddenly realise that you’re not hard after all.
"What do you think?"
"Looks manky."
"The Girdle’s supposed to be protected by the overhangs."
"Hmm. Well, we can always take a look at it."
... which, roughly translated, means that the pair of you are thoroughly frightened at the prospect and want nothing more than to escape from the rain into the beckoning café.
Hurrying now to forget the pangs which are gripping your stomach, you trot off painfully in the direction of the cliff, clad in a deceptively impressive tangle of ironmongery and string. As the cliff approaches, the pangs increase in intensity – a sure sign of your confidence.
... A motley crowd, the C.U.M.C., and peasants all, wandering in predatory gangs around the bases of crags, hurling abuse at gripped leaders; the situation looks ominous when, as you rope up, half a dozen of the more prominent festerers sit purposefully on the wall by the road. You want to unrope again quickly when you realise that the waterfall gushing down your neck is falling from the overhangs above, and that you are standing several feet from the base of the climb.
At least performing seals don’t feel the cold.
The ordeal begins: the rock is easy to start and some of the vultures disappear to fester around the corner. The crux arrives quickly and feels embarrassingly thin after the glorious juggies before it. Ten minutes spent tiring yourself out arranging protective devices in various unobliging orifices and all you need now to complete the move is a bit of push. You bridge up and lean out, And yourself in an irreversible position, and after a couple of moments’ advanced grippery, you paddle and heave in the most ungainly fashion around the protruding bulge. Fortunately the jams are good and she goes.
The crux move is done in almost a state of trance and it is a surprise to the conscious to find itself above the obstacle. You put on belays with a self-satisfied grin at the disappointed onlookers on the road. They look like a bevy of hags around a guillotine when a would-be victim’s reprieve is announced.
"By the way," shouts one of them (an officer of the club, with a not inconsiderable record of lobs himself), "you might find the next move round the arête hard if it’s wet."
It’s wet.
To this trumpet-call re-emerge the other scavenging layabouts and book their grandstand seats on the wall.
"Don’t worry, we have every confidence in you," spoken through clenched teeth with a menacing grin.
"What flowers would you like?"
And the immortal, "You’re going to die!"
The words ring in your ears as you get further and further from your last runner. The abuse rises in a crescendo from the road as it becomes increasingly obvious that you are not, shall we say, entirely in control of the situation.
"Kindly disperse, you illegitimate offspring!" you reply (or words to that effect). Seething with rage, you unleash some strong expressions in the general direction of the rock, thereby causing it to soften, and snarl your way to the top.
... Sighs and groans from the road. Another downpour finally drives the onlookers to the cafe. You are sorely tempted to abseil off and join them, but "since it’s only an easy pitch, now"...
It isn’t.
I have a great deal of sympathy for those who, perhaps in the course of their job or be it for some other reason, find themselves lay-backing on undercuts up a urinal in the pouring rain; but however that may be, this was the immediate prospect at the time.
... As I plopped off, I saw my runner following me, but what was more alarming was a stray jackal below who had seen the whole sordid incident and who now ran off screaming. "A lob! A goodly lob!" for all to hear.
At times like this all you can do is finish the route with grim determination and with weariness plod back to the torrents of abuse at the café.
At such a time life is meaningless.