Monday 7 May 2007

If Tryfan was Cnicht and Cnicht was You.

Tryfan is a beautiful pyramidal peak in the north of Wales. It's jagged smashed outline is that of a classic iconic mountain.

In summer's light we looked up at the top. Red Kites and Buzzards circled the high crags, a perfect spongy doughnut cloud ringed the head, like a giant cockring poised for the saturday night sky.

We ate our camping store meal, rehydrated on the fuel block stove. One more cup of tea and a choccy bar and then we would set off.

We'd talked about climbing this peak for years, we'd talked, talked, talked. 'We should do that you know, we should go to north Wales and climb a few proper peaks'. We talked some more for a few months at least.

Until I got so sick of talking that I said that we had to do it. I made it a must, so I nicked a good lightweight tent and sleeping bags from the Army Stores where I worked and thought about how the hell were we going to get there from the south Wales to north Wales. Us two kids no transport, only a few tins of beans between us.

We got there. Dropped off by a bus that was out of the 1940s, which rattled our bones over miles and miles of mountain scenery, dodged clagged-up sheep and kids on wild horses, no saddle, just clinging to their manes raging wild across the mad scree of the land.

On the comfy grass the warmth of the sun lulled us into a nul-state. I daydreamed fucking that girl who worked in the bakers.

Get up, because we have seven more hours of daylight and it's three thousand feet of sheer up.

We made it a must, we set out, across the alpine-meadow, across rhyns and over boulders that have been there since dirt was young.

Clambering up over huge slabs, along ledges, sharp stones, up up up up up.