reached it. You could sense the tension leave his body as he came into view and spied that I had him on belay. Although hearing "climb when ready" the earlier "I've got you on belay" had been lost on the wind. He'd felt lonely on that wall.

Richard untied, for we were now on a large ledge, perfectly safe to walk off from behind. After taking in what seemed like half a mile of rope it came taught on Dave. Being the older and wiser of the two family members there were a few shouts back and fourth to confirm I had him on belay.

Having reached the top one of Dave's first comments was "Cor I wouldn't have liked to have led that!" Richard joined in with "I didn't realise you had me on belay, it was a bit hard, glad you did". I replied "Do you think I'd still be tied to the rope if there was no belay. If you fall you're on your own, I'm not going to be pulled over the edge with you!" We all laughed at this banter.

We then waited at the top to offer a top rope to Gary's group in case they got into difficulties. After a while with no sight or sound of them we sent Richard down the descent path to find out what was happening.

Eventually we spied Gary, Charles, Dave O'Gorman etc. heading back to the cars having given up below the first vertical chimney section. We then coiled the rope and headed down to join Richard Goodey back at the start of the route. Not knowing whether they'd retrieved my friend, runner, and Dave's sling I climbed back up to the chimney pitch to check. There was nothing now there. At first Dave O'Gorman had only seen the sling in the gloom and thought it was some old tat left behind. Gary luckily insisted that I had a friend placed there and on returning he found the sling was hanging from it and retrieved both. As a reminder Dave Goodey clipped the sling to the friend so he could step in it and reach the flake at the top of the pitch.

We then packed the gear and returned to the cars. At this point it started to hail, having no hood on my jacket, I put my climbing helmet back on! Over to Joe Browns, Capel Curig, to replace the sling and karabiner still at the back of the chimney, and then a quick stop in the Pinnacle Cafe. We met the others here and Gary handed over the remaining bits of my gear. The others then left while Dave Goodey, Richard and myself waited for our food and Audrey and Pascal finished their tea.

Despite plenty of rain up the A5 we made good progress. Our spirits, already high, were lifted yet more at the sight of a myriad of rainbows. We caught up with Gary's carload just after we joined the M6 and hit the traffic. After a brief period of silliness with Audrey holding the wheel, we lost

traverse right and then left around the chimney exit. Once Richard had also made it to the chimney exit I started up the wall, traversing up a leftwards-leaning ramp. The rock was greasy, interspersed with moss and grass, and slippery. I had to be very careful with my feet, balancing with care. The handholds were good but everything dripped with water. The cracks that looked promising proved worthless for placing gear as one by one I reached them.

At this point the rope came taut. Richard said he couldn't free it up, as the rope was also taut between him and his dad Dave, still in the chimney below. So I stopped on the wall getting cold hands, and trying to stay still lest I slipped. By some miracle I managed to get my smallest friend to stay in a pocket and clipped the rope and a runner to it. I also managed to place a number 3 nut in a shallow crack and clipped the runner to this also. I doubted the placements would hold much, but given that they were all that were available I used them.

As Dave exited the Chimney the remaining rope was pulled through to give me some slack. Moving into a slightly better position I asked Richard to move his attachment further down the rope to give myself enough to reach the top without his having to start up the wall. The thought of one of us pulling the other off, with a 100ft potential fall, didn't bear thinking about.

Having reached the top, I searched for a belay, not holding out much hope. Fortunately the top of the route was equipped with an iron stake over to the right. I clove hitched a sling around this and clipped it into my harness. Shouting that I was safe I passed the rope through my belay plate and took the rope in. I then shouted for Richard to start up the wall.

As I suspected at the time the one combined gear placement on the wall proved useless and it pulled out under rope tension just as Richard

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