(By Tom Evans)
For me it was a route on the ‘to have done’ list, yet to convince myself I was prepared to put it on the ‘to do’ list especially with only 1 Gogarth experience under my harness. Anyway on the Thursday I was relaxing down the pub the York MC crew texting Jurgen about the upcoming weekend expecting to make a plan to do a HVS classic such as Dream of White Horses or Scavenger when Jurgen hit me with Mousetrap. I spat out my beer and spluttered fucking hell. When asked what the problem was I muttered Mousetrap, some understood the reaction others were unaware of the route.
I spent Friday at work building the psyche, it’s not often I get to climb with someone of Jurgen’s calibre and get trumped in the route suggestion stakes so was willing to play ball and give it a crack. I had a nothing to complain about drive down Friday and pleasant night vanning it in the car park behind Joe Browns (though you do have to pay 20p to use the fancy new toilets). I met Jurgen in Llanberis for a quick gear faff and drink in Pete’s Eats hoping the climbing legend whiff would seep into us.
We were soon on the road driving through the rain into the perma sunshine of Anglesey. The omens were good as we managed to find a parking space I could get my van in even with my inept parking ability. We met another team with the same plan as us. Even though we set the abseil up we let them go down first as they reeked of climbing experience and we weren’t in a rush.
The guidebook says the abseil is 90m but 65m got us to steady ground being dwarfed by the cathedral of rock chaos that is Mousetrap zawn. It’s not so much as a cliff face as a surrealist interpretation of a cliff frozen in the process of falling down then randomly rotated.
It was good for the confidence watching the team ahead of us, showing us where to go and where to expect some protection (not a lot).
The Ground Up guide describes the first pitch as “An intimidating and audacious lead” and it looks it. Jurgen plays the ‘Its your lead card’ as on our last year he lead us out of the top and crux pitch of Gogarth on main cliff. I don’t grumble as the card was well played and the pitch doesn’t look too bad, I do grumble when presented with his pot luck system of racking wires (4 crabs with a random and monochrome selection of wires, does kinda work but prefer my logical and more colourful array).
The team ahead make steady process and soon enough I have to start grappling with the weirdness. The climbing starts steady enough up a groove way to left of the eventual goal of the crazy quartz chimney system. The reason it starts here is it enables you place a crucial bomber wire which is the only decent gear for a good while. It wouldn’t however stop you slamming into the slabby groove you then descend after the placement.
The rock is of variable quality with bands of crumbly sandy rubbish interspersed with more solid offerings. I find a small cam placement in a pocket that would probably explode but better than nothing. After down climbing the groove you then start questing up and rightwards towards the quartz veins.
There is some gear to be had from a reasonably strenuous position. The placements are all a bit blind, especially for those of a diminutive stature such as myself. The wire that felt good turns out to be comically bad but I get my trusty alien in lower down the crack and jam in another average cam placement before stepping back into onto the slab for a brief depump.
The team ahead found no more gear until established in the chimneys 15 odd feet above the gear with the slab 5 feet below and neither did I. The climbing is reasonably technical and just a little bit steep. The crux is stepping round right to the solidity of the quartz seam. I had numerous little looks trying the move the way the first team tried it with the lactic acid slowly building before finding my own way to the sanctuary of rest and bomber gear.
Another 30 foot of outrageous rock to go. Mostly straightforward climbing except for another exciting step right into the next chimney system which this time has decent large hex protection. There is a surprisingly decent and spacious belay ledge with solid gear. I have to wait for the first team to vacate but soon start bringing Jurgen up with demanding ropework due to the traversing and descending the pitch requires.
With a decent belay and a top rope on the next pitch I relax a little too much. Only a small portion of the 46m pitch can seen from the belay. Naturally Jurgen dispatches this with a minimum of fuss and gear. He especially seemed to cruise a very poky crux surmounting a bulge. That took me quite a bit of huffing and puffing combined with crazy egyptianing. I was glad of the rope above.
After the crux the climbing eases with more spectacular rock architecture as you ascend another quartz seamed groove. Again you need to be inventive and optimistic with the gear.
The next belay I didn’t pay too much attention too as it was a confusing mess of slings wrapped round fins of rock hopefully attached to the cliff. The 3rd and final pitch fell to me and other than a tiny thread soon after the belay it was a while before more trustworthy gear was found. The last pitch had sustained interest over its 35m but had more conventional rock and better gear than the previous 100m. It still had crumbly cracks I’d go to put gear before realising there was no point.
Despite some woeful ropework in the middle of the pitch when pumping out a bit and slightly confused about the way to go I made it to the top of the climb, found some solid things to attach myself to and shouted safe as you do. Safe a word we climbers use so often we blur the meaning. I shouted safe earlier in the day but I couldn’t walk to the car park and buy an ice cream like I could now as I was a 3rd of the way up a large adventurous semi tidal sea cliff. Now I really was safe, and had a comfy belay watching the sun shimmer on the sea whilst bringing up a swiftly climbing Jurgen. Since it had gone 5 we decided against abbing back down to do Death Trap Direct and had reasonably priced ice cream instead.
The overall experience had yet to sink in fully and the scariest thing about the day was how steady I found it all.
What next…
What happened next is that a South African made us salad for tea! Salad! Made by South African! No brai involved! He’s only been married a month! (Congrats by the way). At least he had to drink ale in the pub as they were out of cider.
