Snowdonia Climbing – Milestone Buttress, Ogwen – Nasty rock climbing fall

Like many sports, rock climbing carries an element of risk. When you move from indoor climbing to trad climbing outdoors that risk becomes a little greater. You hope that when gravity wins the day and you do fall off, that the protection you placed prevents you from making contact with terra firma. Unfortunately for me, last weekend I fell off, my protection failed and I made a very firm connection with the ground!

All started well on this trip to Wales. David had booked us in for kite surfing lessons in Kinmel Bay (more hobbies – seriously my wallet can’t take it). We didn’t have to start on the Saturday until 1:30 so it made sense to fit a climb in, early doors. We booked 2 nights at the excellent Idwal Cottage YHA and drove over Friday evening with a view to climbing around 8am Saturday morning.

Now I would ordinarily have liked to have gone for a really big multi-pitch route, and Tryfan was tantalisingly close. Unfortunately there was no way we would have been able to walk-in, climb and then walk-out in the time we had, so we opted for Milestone Buttress (just 15 minutes walk-in from the side of the A5 at the wide end of Llyn Ogwen).

David and I have been confidently leading to HS level outdoors this summer (and about 5b/E2 indoors – crazy huh), but for the bigger routes over 50m, we have pretty much stuck around VDiff (well it’s only our 1st year outdoor climbing). I told David that I fancied going for a big HS, so we decided we would tackle Wall climb, Soap Gut Chimney Route 79m HS (North Wales Rock, by Ground Up). We arrived at the foot of the climb and geared up. As usual I would be first to lead.

When I stepped up to make my first moves, three things became evident:

1. The beginning of the route had a LOT of polish on the footholds
2. The rock was a bit damp
3. The first gear placement was rubbish

Anyway, I gingerly stepped up and tried to place a small nut in a shallow crack to protect me over the next couple of moves. The nut sat awkwardly, only half in the crack. I wasn’t happy with it, but it looked like it was the best I could hope for (please tell me if you have climbed this and found better). The next move required me to place my left foot onto a sloping hold a few feet to the left, and pull up on a crimp. I didn’t feel too uncomfortable with that so off I went. As I pushed from my right foot (which rested on a tiny, polished foothold) it all went belly up. I slipped and fell, landing painfully on my chest on the boulder that I had stood on to start the climb. The nut I had placed had popped straight out and left David holding a slack handful of rope – I knew that nut was crap when I placed it!

It took me a good 2 minutes to get back to my feet after that fall. David was pretty concerned until it was clear that we were not going to require a ride in the Sea King helicopter, he then found it pretty amusing.

I spent the next 5 minutes trying to analayse what went wrong and find an alternative start. There was an alternative just a couple of metres to the left but while it looked better for holds it required a good deal more commitment and would have resulted in a far worse fall had I not made it to the first point of protection a good few metres up. Eventually David and I agreed that we should move round to the right and climb a VDiff. I hate to be beaten, but I was in pretty considerable pain which kept my ego in check.

So what have I learned?

I’m not sure I have learned anything. I would probably make the same mistake again given half the chance. The first few moves of any outdoor climb are the riskiest, especially when you can’t place a good piece of protection. Perhaps the moral of the story is that; if your first piece of protection is poor and the move to get past it requires a commitment near the limit of your ability, walk away and try a different climb (or get someone else to lead that pitch).

It’s now 4 days since that fall.  I did go on to climb a nice big VDiff straight after and another fantastic multi-pitch climb the following day (both of which I took my usual turns to lead). I’m sore as hell and I’m not sure if my ribs are cracked or just bruised, but my enthusiasm for rock climbing remains.

I would be interested to hear your experiences of falling off, whether you managed to escape uninjured and how you dealt with it psychologically.