Morgan Woods leading Fool's Gold
© Kiera Lang
I have always liked slate. I both onsighted my first VS (Seamstress) and climbed my first HVS (Solstice) on it. The second climb also saw me taking my first leader fall and thankfully escaping pretty much unscathed. Something about the rock suits me. I think it is the combination of the typically just-short of vertical angle; the small, but positive, edges; the emphasis on foot-work; and the types of moves: high-steps and rock-overs and small dead-points rather than full-on dynos.
Whatever the reason, I decided that, despite never having onsighted HVS before, it was worth giving Fool's Gold a go. I did this at the end of a week’s climbing in North Wales. The time had been spent mostly doing easy mountain multi-pitch, maybe not the greatest preparation for technical 5c climbing! I probably also went for the E1 5c grade, rather than the more typical E1 5b, because of the likelihood of bomber gear; something Fool's Gold has something of a reputation for.
So we pitched up, I racked up and stood underneath the line. I wasn't certain that I should be there and had more butterflies in my stomach than could be explained by the adrenaline rush associated with excitement. I guess in many ways I failed the route right then, not having the right mental attitude. I was intimidated and, at least for me, trad doesn't work when I'm intimidated. Still I thought as I'm here, in my harness and roped up, I'd be a wimp not to give it a go; so up I went.
For those of you who don't know the route, it starts with very easy climbing on a number of ledges up to a platform under a triangular mini-roof. From here, you move up and right into a crack which leads to the top of the climb. The 5c crux is just after you move out from under the roof. You have small edges for your feet, then have to reach up for a finger-lock for your left hand, pull through to a gaston on the far side of the crack and then get you feet up high enough to become properly established. There is gear aplenty at the platform and as you move to just below the crux there is what has been described as the most bomb-proof DMM no. 5 placement in North Wales. It is a lock-like T-shaped notch which the wire drops into and would probably hold at least two elephants at a push.
I moved out from the roof and got the bomb-proof wire placed and clipped. The finger-lock felt ultra-positive on smooth, non-painful rock. The move up to the gaston felt smooth as well and I was through the crux. Here is where it all went wrong. In my mind, I thought that if I got the crux, it was all over. Now here I was with not the most positive of gastons and on foot-holds that suddenly seemed like micro-edges looking up at the crack which seemed to stretch on to meet the sky above. The guidebook says that the next section is solid 5b climbing and it looked like it. I had just done a single 5c sequence, but a series of 5b moves now seemed beyond me. Stupidly, I hadn't been prepared for anything other than a VS-type romp from this point and mentally I had lost it. The bubble burst and my only thought was "you are in over your head, what were you thinking of trying an E1?" Despondently I lowered back down.
With the benefit of hindsight, I got everything wrong that I could have got wrong. I jumped on an E1 when I had been climbing nothing harder than HS that week and had done no bouldering to get my body used to harder moves. I picked a climb with a higher than usual technical grade, when my strength leading (if I have one) is more keeping it together above gear than doing hard moves. I had not warmed up at all. The first part of the climb was so easy that I was essentially still cold when I approached the crux. I had no plan for the part of the route past the crux and naively assumed that it wouldn't be a problem. When things started to go wrong, I didn't think about trying to calm down and reassess the situation, I just panicked.
At the time of course, I didn't take away these learnings, I just thought that E1 was clearly way beyond my meagre abilities and I had no business being on one.
It was a long time before I tried another climb of this standard.
Continued in: 29th July 2007 - Seams the Same (E1 5b) - Serengeti Area of Dinorwig Quarry, Llanberis
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