Ahead was a long and tapering ramp of stubby rock. It was broad in comparison with the claustrophobic cracks of just a few moments earlier, high enough to be exhilarating, yet secure-feeling. The surroundings were beginning to take on the jaunty perspective of great height, but I was still very much on the mountain’s flanks.
It didn’t last. A finger of rock tilting out over a drop marked the beginning of the stretch known as the Pinnacles, collectively comprising the knife-edged part of the ridge that Crib Goch was famous for. This rocky frill was the second of Mal’s ‘exciting’ bits. Again, two choices: the technically easier climb over the top, no doubt accompanied by the sort of airy, hit-the-deck-and-hold-on panic of great height on both sides; or an awkward, slip-friendly traverse beneath it to the left over one long drop to the right. I could see that the extent of the exposure was going to be hidden until I’d made my choice, so any ideas about just ‘having a look’ before committing to a move wouldn’t work.
Another moment of pause. The light was fading rapidly, and here I was at another uncertain commitment. Scraping a solid foothold from the loose scree beneath my feet, I took a breath to steady my knees, then – taking option one – hauled myself untidily onto the top. And there it was: the crest of Crib Goch, flat and straight, an upturned comb of rock spines as wide as a park bench. At its centre, the ridge was cut by a monstrous vein of white quartz, from a distance resembling a tangled parachute draped over the bristles – minus a dangling, panicking sky diver. Beyond, a thickening and jumbling of the rock suggested the end of the Pinnacles and a descent into the Bwlch Coch, the grassy notch at which I’d be over the worst of the bad ground, and in search of my camp for the night. All I had to do was get there. It looked a long way off.
The first pinnacle was tall and comfortingly huggable. Inching round to the left of it, I stepped out onto the crest in a low stoop, arms spread in a wide triangle in front of me, as if trying to ward off jumping terriers. A draught of air came from below as voids opened to both sides and I inched beyond grab-distance of the pinnacle. A few steps along the crest and I’d reach a small cluster of pointy rocks I could crouch against. All it took was four or five steps, and the means to link them together. One step, two, don’t look down, three, four … there. I spotted a gearstick-sized needle of rock; I lunged and grabbed it. It moved. I froze.
Heights, as far as your body is concerned, are the enemy. Look over a drop and you trigger a sequence of chemical events between your brain and your limbs – a kind of biological Mexican wave – that begins with a massive dump of epinephrine (otherwise known as adrenaline) from your adrenal glands. This hormone quickens your pulse rate, increases respiration, re-routes energy from your digestive system to more pressing physical applications, and releases nutrients and sugar flow to the limbs for a bit of short-term muscular zing. Hang out over a huge drop and you might describe such feelings as a hollow belly, a fluttery heart and a feeling of jittery, almost narcotic energy in your extremities that you could mistake for the irrational urge to ‘jump over the edge’. You don’t want to jump over the edge, of course. What you’re experiencing is a primal biological reaction from your body that you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be. A reaction that says, hey – if you feel like escaping whatever peril into which you’ve gone and landed yourself, here’s an evolution-crafted helping hand designed to channel all your available energy into doing just that.
This response is commonly referred to as ‘fight-or-flight’, though a more contemporary – and apt – term is ‘fight-or-flight-or-freeze’. It’s probably what has led to all those cases of people becoming cragfast on Crib Goch: a realisation of sudden, frightening vulnerability followed by a mutinous physiological rush, which, in delicate situations demanding calm and considered movements, might actually add to your problems. Not moving is therefore a fairly logical, if temporary, tactic – especially when you’re in an environment where gravity is against you and simply ‘letting go’ will be the end of you.
My knees were shaking. I was hoping I’d be bolder than this and not succumb to fear this early, but I’d seen the drop – and now couldn’t ignore it. The moving shard of rock had something rather more solid adjacent to it; I now clung to this and considered my next move. Ahead, the ridge was taking on an eerie quality in the thickening dusk. The light had softened, and the landscape was beginning to lose its contrasts. Fighting to keep confidence – and therefore decisiveness – under my control, I stepped up onto the crest again, and focused on my feet. Just like walking along a pavement. A very tall pavement.
The crest itself is fairly linear, maybe a foot wide, made of crenellated, fractured rock that’s broken up into halved-brick-sized blocks – small enough to step over, but the perfect size to trip the boots of the cocky or complacent. It’s given a certain potency by the ever-present drop to the right. The bedding planes of the rock are tilted in such a way that the north face is cut at a severe angle, meaning that the ground is shallower to the left – a long, loose slope at an angle of about 70 degrees. If you took a slip this way you still wouldn’t stop, but psychologically the drop was easier to deal with, and as I continued to inch along the chewed crest I could see the polished rock where thousands of feet had found passage a few feet down on this slope using the very apex as a handrail. This wasn’t hard to understand, because a fall to the right would be comprehensively fatal – hundreds of feet of air, terminating far below with a deep ramp of pink scree. The sense of dread isn’t relentless, however, as several grassy platforms and accommodatingly flat slabs of rock punctuate the ridge’s narrow first stretch – good spots to stop, breathe, have a chocolate bar and a little cry if you want, before reviewing your progress and looking further along the ridge to what’s coming.
A level block the size of a car bonnet appears a few feet beyond the big quartz vein – up close, it no longer resembles a stranded parachute but a rock sprayed with whitewash – and I chose this as a place to take a moment’s rest. From here, the architecture of the ridge is awesome, and your position – dare I say – incredibly exhilarating. Snowdon itself squares up to you now; a massive pyramid, slightly offset, its face acres of grey, deep-wrinkled rock punching skyward from its glacial valley, where the black waters of Glaslyn stare blankly upwards like a dead eye. It’s beautiful, and brutally so.
Beyond this point Crib Goch begins to undulate like a sine wave, rearing up into impressive rock turrets then dropping down again into slacks of narrow crest. It also begins to slink, snake-like, from side to side, creating tall, semicircular buttresses that bulge from the cliff and accentuate the long drops. From this promontory I caught a glimpse of the way ahead. It was a sight to raise blisters.
The ridge rose into two blade-like towers of shocked-looking rock, one after the other. I followed the line of travel with my eyes over the first, and felt sick; its crest tilted over the biggest chasm on the ridge, an overhang. It looked horrible – the prospect of climbing it like shimmying up an angled flagpole on the roof of a skyscraper.
Reaching the first of these towers, the rock underfoot became grander – shed-sized pieces of cracked rock replacing the fidgety, crenellated crest. Looking for polished rock that would suggest a line of travel, I began to ascend, the rock closing in around me for the first time in a while. This was not an unwelcome feeling, but, as I climbed, an uncomfortable thought began to creep in to my head amidst the echoing scratches of my steps. I couldn’t see the drop any more. Where was it? Was I over it? Was I suddenly going to pop my head above the skyline and be confronted with it?
Feeling suddenly vulnerable – perhaps because the end was in sight – I steered clumsily around the block on the very top and I found a truncated staircase of boulders that led down into the slack between the two towers with a deep gully opening in between. The next tower pushed me off the left – a labyrinth of cracks and slabs above Crib Goch’s steep southern slopes. Traversing around led me to a few scrubby descents and a messy scramble over abrasive rock, but then a gap appeared round the rocks to my left, broad and tufty. Two more moves, then a fizz of relief that shivered through my body.
Crib Goch was done and I allowed myself a little whoop of elation. The platform I was on felt huge, luxuriously so. If I so wished, I