On The Hills
1966
Richard Gowing, in Japan in May, visited the Chichibu Alps, some 50 miles north west of Tokio. In soft snow and mist he climbed Kimposan (8505 ft.) and Kokushigadake’ (8493 ft.) and, further west, Yatsugatake (9505 ft.) by the south east ridge. Returning to Europe, he was in the Paradiso area of the Graian Alps in August and ascended the Gran Paradiso (13,324 ft.) by the ordinary route; the wild life included chamois, ibex and superb flowers.
Paul Roberts in May had a fortnight’s ski touring in the Upper Engadine with the Grindelwald Eagle Ski Club. From Maloja they climbed Monte Sissone, returning to Maloja in a snowstorm; then, taking the Corvatsch lift, they climbed Piz Morteratsch from the Tschierva Hut, Piz Palu from the Boval Hut and, two days later, Piz Bernina from the Boval. The tour ended by crossing into Italy by the Fuorcla Bellavista and back to the Coaz Hut and Pontresina over the Fuorcla da Sella.
Harry Stembridge was with Alf Gregory in Czechoslovakia and Poland in the early summer. They camped above Stary Smokovec, at the foot of the High Tatra, in rain, snow, sleet and gale-force winds. An occasional glimpse of magnificent mountains convinced them that this was the best area for superb rock climbing but after five frustrating days they crossed into Poland only to find 5 feet of new snow in the Tatra and one foot in Zakopane. After several crossings of high passes and climbing some minor peaks they abandoned the mountains to explore the Polish countryside. Here, in better weather, they found charming villages and foothills, and Polish mountaineers who were kindness itself and who delighted in showing them the beauties of their country and first class climbing of all grades. They told them that autumn was the best time of year for weather and that camping was advisable as hotels were infrequent and expensive. In October Stem-bridge and Gregory were happy to be able to welcome some of these Polish climbers in Britain and to give them the opportunity to climb in the Lake District and elsewhere.
John Middleton took part in a British Speleological Expedition to the limestone district east of Antalya in Southern Turkey. The area is very rich in caves and pot-holes, many of them totally unexplored. After spending five days in the Taurus Mountains around Akseki, some 35 miles north of Antalya, where, in collaboration with a French party from Orsay University, they explored and surveyed five important caves, they carried out, again with the French, an attack on the great Dumanli resurgence, about 20 miles up the Manavgat River.
Moorhouse was in the Dolomites, working on a film as a porter. After this with an American friend, he climbed the French Diretissima on the Cima Ovest di Lavaredo (Grade VI+), with one bivouac, the second ascent by an Anglo-Saxon party. With an Englishman, George Homer, he did the Super Direct on the Cima Grande (Grade VI+) in bad weather conditions. Then they climbed the North East Arete of the Cima Ovest, known as the Squirrel’s Arete” after a group of Cortina guides who made the first ascent in 1959; the route takes a magnificent line up a very overhanging arete, it is a Grade VI +; Moorhouse and Homer made the tenth ascent in all and the first British. In August he climbed, alone, the Maestri Route on the Rotwand in the Catinaccio Group, it took him 8^ hours, the second solo ascent and the first without bivouac; it is a Grade VI+ , artificial, 1300 foot climb. In September, with two companions, he made the fourth ascent of the Direct North Face of the Sassolungo, again a Grade VI + route and 3500 feet; the first ascent was in 1937 and the main difficulty hard, loose, free climbing with little protection. To finish the year he climbed, with one companion, the classic Pilastro di Rozes in the Tofana Group (Grade VI) and the seventh, or eighth, ascent of a beautiful new route on Mugoni Spitz South East Wall in the Catinaccio Group, known as “Grande Diedre”.
George Spenceley was again in Turkey, this time leading an expedition organised by the Yorkshire Schools Exploration Society. By adding to their number a mountaineering member of the Turkish Secret Police they had no difficulty in penetrating the mountains lying close to the Soviet border. They made the first British ascents of Kackar Dag and Biiyiik Kapi and the first ascents of two of the six needles of the Altiparmak. Handley and Kinder took another group of young people, sponsored by the same Society, for three weeks to Andorra, where they were engaged mostly on field work in geography, geology and botany but where they were also able to fit in four days of climbing.
1967
Paul Roberts was ski-ing at Zermatt early in the season and in the summer he found Samoens, in the valley north of Cham-onix, an excellent place for mountain walking away from the Chamonix crowds. In a hectic week at Chamonix he climbed the Dent du Geant, Rochefort Arete, Aiguille de Rochefort, the traverse of the Periades, Requin, Grepon, and Aiguille du Midi by the Arete Cosmique. The last he finished to the true summit by pushing through crowds on the lower observation platform, climbing from the roof of a building over the rocks, the final belay being the fence-post at the upper platform, on to which he emerged to a film star’s welcome from delirious American tourists. Watts, in February, with the Grindelwald Eagle Ski Club, spent a fortnight at Affeier in the Vorderrheintal, a quiet and remote district where there are no artificial aids to ski-ing. Each day the party climbed on skins one of the half dozen 8,000 to 8,500 ft. peaks of the Obersaxen, lunched in glorious weather on the summits and ran down in perfect powder snow in the afternoon.
Geoffrey Brooke walked in the Alps in the summer; starting from Aigle, in the Rhone Valley, he crossed the Col de la Croix and Col de Pillon, passed through Gsteig and on to Lauenen by way of Krinnen, over the Truttlisberg Pass to Lenk, the Hanenmoos to Adelboden, then by Bonderkrinnen above Kandersteg and the Gemmi Pass back into the Rhone Valley and so to Zermatt.
Richard Gowing was again in Japan and walked upon various extinct or dormant volcanoes, including Nantai-san, 8144 ft., and Shirane-san, 8453 ft., in the Nikko National Park. He also made a summer ascent of Fuji-san with several thousand other people. On his way home over the Pole he saw the top of Mount McKinley above the clouds and got good views of northern Greenland under the midnight sun. In the autumn he was walking at Zermatt in perfect weather and found that Paula Biner carries on the old traditions at the Bahnof Hotel.
In May, while touring in the South of France, Watts visited the Club’s Honorary Member, Monsieur Robert de Joly, at Orgnac l’Aven, who took him down three of the most impressive caves in the Ardeche. La Grotte d’Orgnac was discovered and explored by de Joly in 1933, about one fifth of the known passages are now open to the public and contain many magnificent stalagmites. La Grotte de la Caucaliere, about 25 Km. from Orgnac, had only that month been opened to the public by means of an access tunnel drilled into the passages about 5Km. from the natural entrance; the formations are still active and the most remarkable are calcite discs, almost detached from the roof, many with fine draperies growing from them. The Gouffre de Marzal, so-named after a man who was murdered and thrown into it with his dog, is 48 Km. from Orgnac along the beautiful valley of the River Ardeche; it is a genuine pot-hole and is now equipped with narrow iron stairways winding down the fissures to a total depth of about 500 ft. The formations are very fine, especially curtains of many different colours; it was worthy of note that no expense has been spared in protecting with wire netting any formations within reach of the stairways.
At Whitsuntide Hilton, with six of the less youthful Members of the Club—average age calculated at 62^ years—and one Guest, camped at Lone Bothy, Loch Stack, Sutherland, by kind permission of the Agent of the Duchess of Westminster and by the friendly good offices of Mr. Scobie, the Head Stalker. On a day of superb weather they traversed Ben Arkle and on an equally superb day, by leaving a car on the Rhico-nich/Durness road, they traversed the 3J miles of Foinaven’s splendid ridge from west to east, returning to their camp by a stalkers’ track. Some of the party also climbed Ben Stack. On an off-day they visited Handa Island, the local bird warden took them in his boat round the island and under the 300/400 foot western cliffs where they were able to see at close range the huge nesting colonies of guillemots, razorbills and fulmars on the narrow ledges; they also saw puffins, kittiwakes, the Great Skua and an albino oyster-catcher. Later in the year Hilton was in south-west Ireland where he explored the Dingle peninsula and the Reeks of MacGillicuddy. Craven was in the Highlands in August—Loch Hourn, Torridon, Coigach and Drumbeg—rain, mist and midges. David Smith and Alan Linford were in Arran.
John Middleton returned to the caves and potholes of the Antalya district in Turkey, where he not only explored and surveyed a number of new discoveries, but made the difficult 9-hour passage of the Kapuscay Kapiz, the Gorge of the Melon River, one of the longest and deepest in Turkey.
Tim Smith spent December in the Himalayas; from a base camp where he could look up the South Cwm to the full majesty of Mount Everest he did a month’s trekking in perfect weather and ascended three peaks around 19,000 feet.
Judson and Arculus, with a party consisting mainly of Manchester members of the British Speleological Association, explored and bottomed Antro di Corchia, in the Apuan Alps near Pisa, the fifth deepest pothole in the world, 805 metres.
1968
Smithson, while helping to build a steel works at Witbank in South Africa, did a 3000-mile caravan trip down the east and south coast to Cape Town, returning through the Karroo. While in Cape Province he visited the Cango Caves, near Oudtshoorn, discovered in 1780 and open to the public since 1881. The explored section extends for 2 miles. Despite model cave-men, artificial fires and electronically controlled lights in the first two chambers (there is no evidence that the caves were ever inhabited), there are many fine formations of many different shades. At Cape Town he ascended Table Mountain by Skeleton Gorge. Between Cape Town and Worcester he drove over the Dutoitskloof Pass and on the right hand side noted, for closer investigation at some future date, a magnificent ridge of the Skye type, 20 miles long.
Tim Smith skied at Zermatt in March in perfect weather. Watts in Spain in May, visited the caves at Altamira and Puente Viesgo, near Santander, where he found that the late palaeolithic paintings were much less beautiful and less skilfully executed than those at Lascaux. Passing through the Dor-dogne on the way home, he was told at Les Eyzies that there was hope of Lascaux being again opened to the public in 1969; it was thought that means had been found of preserving the pictures.
Stock, in the New Hebrides to teach Milanesian children, was taken by one of his pupils to Siviri Cave, on the island of Efate. He was told by his guide that no torches were needed, all that was necessary was a coconut frond; if the floor of the cave was beaten with this, the darkness would roll away. After the entrance was a large chamber and beyond this a lake of clear still water rambling along a narrow high-roofed passage. At this point lack of equipment—and of coconut fronds—cut short the exploration.
John Middleton, Trevor Salmon, Tony Dunford and Bill Woodward were exploring caves in the Lebanon in July and August. With Members of the Speleo Club de Liban they bottomed the country’s deepest pothole, Fouar Dara (2,100 ft.), and discovered 1,000 metres of new passage. The Speleo Club granted them the use of their headquarters in Beirut as a base, provided them with equipment and transport to the main caving areas and nursed them through a two-day attack of food poisoning. At a banquet given in their honour before they left, the President, Monsieur Ahmed Malek prounounced them Honorary Members of the Club. The Y.R.C. is deeply grateful to Monsieur Malek and to the Speleo Club de Liban for all the kindness and hospitality which so much helped to make this expedition such an outstanding success.