The Three Cliffs (by Pete Hatton,1974) was the last of the pocket sized guidebooks to the Llanberis Pass. There were no "E" grades back then and the hardest grade was "Hard Extremely Severe". There were very few climbs given this magical grade: "Surplomb" (Grochan), "Erosion Groove Direct" (Wastad), "The Thing", "Left Wall" and "The Cromlech Girdle" (all three on The Cromlech). I had done the first three in 1976.
I decided to do Left Wall in early 1977, despite knowing nothing about the route and never having seen anyone on it. All I did know was that there was a high crux where the thin crack goes left. I was belayed by Ray Parker (from the Clwyd Mountaineering Club) and Karl took the photos.
The difficulties seemed to increase as I got higher and higher, but I was reassured by the bomber gear. (Chalk was a new thing in those days, so you had to work out where the best holds were.) In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about where this crack was, the one that went left. To cut a long story short, I went left too soon and ended up climbing desperately thin moves all the way across to the top arete of "Epitaph". There was hardly any gear and I was really gripped. Somehow I kept it together and didn't take a massive lob. I was chuffed because I really thought that I'd done Left Wall.
Neither Ray nor Karl wanted to follow. There was a familiar face at the crag that day, who we'd seen lots of times at Tremadoc and The Pass during the last year or so. He volunteered to second. His name was Jim Jewel and we became great friends. Needless to say, he ran up it in about five minutes.
How can you go off route on Left Wall? Doh! However, I had made a variation first ascent! Having realised my mistake, I went back later that year to do it properly, which will take us to tomorrow's story.
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