Author: George Wilks

From 1945 to the opening of Beudy Mawr in 1948 the Club found temporary refuge in a small tin hut (Tyn-y-Shanty) next to Nant y Benglog Chapel in the Ogwen Valley. It can be seen in this picture through the trees on the right. Peter Harding’s article ‘Haute Hut Cuisine’ in the 1995-96 Journal describes the hut, its basic facilities and a culinary disaster in Easter 1948. At that time Harding was pioneering some great climbs in the Peak and North Wales and produced his celebrated guide to Llanberis Pass in 1950. He carried on climbing to a high standard in later life, recording his adventures in some classic articles which I hope to include in a future edition. Another visitor to the Shanty was Ken Davidson whose solo ‘Climber’s Grand Tour’ from the 1947 Journal can be found here. I wonder if anyone took up Ken’s invitation to follow in his footsteps and perhaps even added Longland’s to the itinerary?

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After Joe Fisher’s slideshow of his winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge (still available in the Virtual Meets Gallery) I thought we could look back at some summer expeditions along this magnificent ridge. Basil Goodfellow in the 1925 Journal (click here) after providing a convincing case for tackling the traverse from south to north (Gars-bheinn to Sgurr nan Gillean) then gives timings and tips for his own crossing with Frank Yates in the opposite direction! Goodfellow also mentions the fast traverse by Somervell. This was particularly remarkable: not only did Somervell extend the route from Gillean to Sgurr na h-Uamha but, after the first half where he was accompanied by Rucksacker Graham Wilson, he soloed the rest of the ridge including Naismith’s route on the Bhasteir Tooth. Howard Somervell is better known for his exploits on two Everest expeditions, partnering Norton on the second summit attempt in 1924. On 29 May 1953 when two other guys were topping out on Everest, Ted Courtenay and Vin Desmond were heading from Manchester to Glen Brittle on Ted’s BSA 350. You can read about their epic attempt on the Cuillin Ridge in the first part of this article from RCJ 1954. In view[…]

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Five years after the Club’s lease of Cwm Eigiau ended in 1921 a sub-committee was formed to find a replacement “in some local climbing or tramping area but not so difficult of access as was the Cwm Eigiau hut or even so far off as the Langdale Valley”. A search for premises close to the Kinder/Bleaklow area proved fruitless but then Herbert Carr, Hon. Sec. of the Climbers’ Club and former Rucksack Club member, suggested Tal y Braich Uchaf, a small farmhouse near to Helyg, the CC’s new hut in the Ogwen Valley. A lease was signed in February 1927 and we are fortunate to have in the archives Keith Treacher’s unpublished history of Tal y Braich covering the next seventeen years, which can be found here As Keith says, this was a particularly active period in the Club’s life and he highlights the impressive list of first ascents recorded in the hut’s log book. Several of these were the subject of Journal articles and I have selected Lindley Henshaw’s entertaining account in the 1928 Journal of the attempts and final ascent of what became Pigott’s Climb on Clogwyn Du’r Arddu’s East Buttress. This represented a major breakthrough. In his[…]

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In an earlier post in this series Andy Tomlinson gave us Tim Wyldbore’s amusing account of Cwm Eigiau’s transformation from a remote shepherd’s cottage to Britain’s first climbing hut, together with Roger Booth’s detailed history of the hut up to the end of the Club’s tenancy in 1921. Mike Dent’s Archivists Report 2020 refers to a visit to Cwm Eigiau hut in 1917 by Walter Haskett-Smith (the ‘Father of British rock-climbing’) and Mr and Mrs Scott-Tucker and the reports by Haskett-Smith and Mrs Scott-Tucker (the ‘Commissariat Officer’) from the 1918 Journal can be accessed here. The accompanying photograph of Cwm Eigiau Cottage was taken in May 2006 shortly after a crack Wednesday Walkers team set off on a three-day tour of the Welsh 3000s. We found the hut (maintained by Rugby Mountaineering Club) little changed, with basic facilities, no electricity, bottled gas instead of the ‘capricious’ Primus stoves for cooking and access on foot only: a proper mountain hut!

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