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This was the route we'd seen while doing Amphitheater Buttress and decided we'd have a go at some time. I remember the words 'maybe in September or October' being used. This time table was quite ambitious, but also quite responsible as it would have given us the whole summer of climbing to hone our skills. I definitely felt that I needed to improve mine: when I was climbing in my teens I used to have reasonable technique but hardly any upper-body strength. On recent trips to the crags I had realised that I was now the other way round. This was fine for struggling my way up some 30 foot piece of gritstone but I didn't want to rely on it for something this big. I figured that by October a big VS would be well within my capabilities, well, just within them at any rate. Andy was also really into doing the climb towards the end of the season, he's often quite enthusiastic about climbing when it's a long way in advance and he can convince himself he'll be a bit fitter by then. I've no idea what Malc thought about it.

So, a few weeks later a load of us were in Wales and I'd just taken a night away from my friends to stay with my family in the Pen-y-gwyrd where they were celebrating my little sister graduating from Bangor University. We all ended up having a beer in the public bar together, well I think Andy must have had quite a few because somehow, entirely casually and in the space of a couple of minutes, we decided to do it the following day. I've got a vague memory that my Mum might have been a little concerned, but I was really looking forward to it although I had just a bit too much adrenaline in me to sleep easily that night.

I really don't know how it happened that we attempted this route. The four members of the Big Easy Mountain Route Club were back in Snowdonia with about 10 other mates so we decided to do a route while we were there. I thought the east face of Tryfan would be a good idea as it fitted all the criteria. There are a number of routes on there of a sort of V Diff standard. Now, I know that on Amphitheater Buttress we'd decided to up the grade a bit but the weather wasn't great and I've been really into climbing Tryfan on the east face for some time. Somehow we ended up going back to Amphitheater buttress to do 'Walls of Mist', a climb that we saw on the other side of the Amphitheater a few weeks before. I'm sure that when I got in the car we were headed for Tryfan, I was aware of talk of 'walls of mist' and 'doing a VS' but I thought it was just that, talk. When it became apparent that we were actually going to do this climb I was a bit apprehensive but as I could climb 'VS', I thought it would all be OK.

After our obligatory breakfast we set off of the long walk up and over the hill to the start of the route.

After pausing for quite some time at a very smelly dead sheep (bad omen I'm sure) we got to the bottom of the climb. We faffed around for ages, it was terrible. When we'd eventually identified the climb we spent ages looking at it. While I was sure I could climb it (it was only a VS which to be honest is the limit of my leading ability but I hadn't met a VS I couldn't lead) I was really scared of trying. Basically as you climbed up and traversed to the right the ground beneath you dropped away at an alarming rate adding to the exposure.

We decided to give it a go anyhow and Mark led off, followed by Ben. Or not as that case was. Ben couldn't get off the ground. After a while of trying we decided to dump a load of our equipment at the bottom and then two of us would go down at the end to retrieve it.

I then got up the first pitch OK. It's quite short and straight up but you then have to traverse rightwards along an easy ledge. This gives you some incredible exposure as the ground drops away from you very steeply as you move right.

The following 3 pictures depict Ben on the crux of the second pitch. It involved shuffling along one ledge with your feet as it got smaller and smaller with your hands high above your head. You then had to stretch out with your right foot until it found a fair sized pocket. Ben attempted this a number of times before succeeding and meeting Mark on the 'perch' ledge. Then it was my turn.

Mark set off up the 2nd pitch as Andy came up the 1st. The 2nd pitch is much longer and harder and Andy had joined me at my stance by the time Mark had got to the crux. The crux is a long traverse to the right at full stretch with poor protection. Mark looked to be in some difficulty which worried me as he is a significantly better climber than me. He declared that he wasn't long enough which had the result of reducing me to fits of laughter as fear often does with me on the rock. I managed to get my breath back for long enough to tell him that the tribes people on the islands of the Torres Strait used to call human meat 'long pig' because it tasted like pork. Me and Andy were both gibbering quite a lot by now and Mark had to tell us not to talk to him as he was in quite a desperate situation. A fall at this point would have resulted in a long swing to his left where he would have smashed into a face of rock facing him. After what looked like one hell of a struggle he made it and told us it was a 'lovely bit of rock' and 'well within our capabilities'. I set off and climbed up to the traverse to find that the block which had provided the only gear placement to protect the traverse was loose. I could probably have pulled it off with my hands. It was also about 30 feet directly above Andy's head so I decided not to. The traverse itself was what for me dominates all memories of the climb. It was hideous. It's long, exposed and in my memory badly protected. I know Andy said that a fall here would be ok but my memory is that a fall would have involved crashing into a sharp edge of rock well over to the right, and then hanging on rock that I wouldn't be able to climb, too high up to be lowered to the ground. I don't remember if I had prussick loops with me.

It took me a long long time and several desperate attempts before I realised I couldn't do it and told the others so. By this time Mark had been sitting in safety for some time, had recovered his composure and was now claiming not to have been freaked out at all. He persuaded me to have one more go and I managed it and then climbed the rest of the pitch a bit more easily.

I placed my gear where Mark had and started to move out along the ledge. I wasn't happy. I hate traverses. I think that they are just plain dangerous. I went back and checked my gear placement. It was then that I noticed that this fuck off great rock that I had placed a friend behind was loose. Too loose. This shook me up. No, I was already shook up, this scared the shit out of me. I climbed higher and placed some really dodgy protection higher up and down climbed back to the ledge. I moved out along the ledge a couple more times and then admitted defeat. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. We decided that we couldn't just give up so Mark and Ben attached themselves to the rock, untied their rope and threw one end down to me.

I was scared by now but feeling pretty good, I quite enjoy being scared and although this was serious I was feeling pretty pleased with how I was holding up. This is the only time I have ever seriously thought that we might have to be rescued and I was still finding it within me to enjoy myself. I even tricked Mark into looking over the edge which he was trying really hard not to do as it made him feel giddy and he knew he had to swing out over it soon. I consider it admirable that, faced with the possible necessity for rescue, and with the fact that we very probably would not be able to alert anyone to the fact that we needed rescuing (the only mobile had been left on the ground when we dumped half the gear), I was doing my best to erode the confidence of the only person capable of getting us out of there.

I spent a long time on that perch because as soon as Andy got to that loose block he lost what little confidence he had left. In my opinion Andy suffers from his technique being quite a lot better than his fitness or his head for heights. This often means that although he's technically capable of doing something he's too mentally and physically fucked to actually do it. He's fine on a gritstone outcrop but put him on anything big, exposed, committed and at the edge of his abilities and it's a different story. Fair enough I suppose when you put it like that.

After several attempts, with his voice wobbling more each time, he admitted defeat and we threw him our rope, (it's worth getting into a rescue situation just for the joy of throwing someone a rope across a rock face by the way). When he joined us he was a very different person to the one I'd left on the first ledge. Mark set off up the 3rd pitch while Andy sorted himself out on the perch.

I caught the rope, tied on and had another couple of goes.

It just wasn't working. Did I mention how I hate traverses? I hate them to second as well as to lead. It can be just as dangerous for the second, especially if you have just had a rope thrown down so there is no gear above you until the person who is belaying you. In this case, in reality it wouldn't have been too bad as I'd have swung hugely into space giving me time to prepare for impact on swinging back into the rock, which would mean either stopping myself with my legs or letting my rucksack take the impact. But I was scared. In order for me to reach the pocket for my right foot I had to shuffle my left foot further to the right whilst I was balanced upon it as I could not reach otherwise. On what was to be my last attempt I made it and climbed easily up to the perch with Ben and Mark. I was fucked. When you are scared climbing everything tenses up, you use more energy. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. There was no way I was going to lead any more that day. We therefore sorted out how we were going to continue with Mark leading and the rest of us coming up on the 2 remaining ropes.

Mark headed off up the climb and I called for Malc to start climbing up to the perch. I think that it was about now that Ben dropped the guide book. This made us even more fucked. We did have 2 guide books but left one at the bottom with the gear that we'd discarded. Thoughts turned to disaster. We had no warm clothes as we'd left them at the bottom, along with our only mobile phone, torches, first aid kit and both our descriptions of the route. Not having a guide book was perhaps more serious than it sounds, we were on the easiest climb on the rock, if the leader goes off route they can find themselves in a lot of bother. To add to my distress I estimated that we were now too high to abseil off even on twin ropes. Because of the fact that we were 2 pitches up and the traversing involved was coupled with the ground dropping away and we were sitting above an overhang even if we tied our two ropes together we wouldn't be able to reach the bottom and retrieve the ropes afterwards or maybe even reach the bottom.

Suddenly i heard a rock or something fall from our ledge into the abyss. 'Below' I shouted, but it didn't sound like a rock. Neither me nor Andy could work out what it was until Malc calmly informed us it was the guide book. I felt a bit stupid but wasn't too bothered as Andy had a guide too. 'No', he said, 'we left that on the ground with most of the rest of our emergency gear'. By this time Andy was looking properly scared. Our situation was bad - we couldn't down climb or lower off, and we didn't know the route up. Even if we could find the route we didn't know for sure we could climb it. I looked down at Malc to see how he was taking it - I was a bit worried about him, after all me and Andy had each other for company while Malc had watched all this on his own. He was casually rolling a cigarette and wouldn't have looked out of place on his sitting room sofa. I thought to myself that he could be quite a cool cucumber. Then I thought that with Malcolm you couldn't tell the difference between him knowing what's going on and having it all in hand, and him being totally oblivious.

After this it somehow all went very well. Malc made the traverse look easy, earning himself the title 'longest pig', and the horrific looking hand traverse across an overhang on the 3rd pitch, while challenging was also enjoyable. I love traverses and often try to pick a climb that involves one. We found our way OK, with a bit of help from some people who appeared on the other side of the gully. And made it to the top with at least an hour or two of light left.

The route got harder. Now I'm not usually one for complaining about grades and I know that I was both scared and knackered but there is no way that this climb is a VS. The start of the next pitch involved an overhanging hand traverse, i.e.shuffleing along hanging from your hands with little or no purchase for your feet. After we had negotiated this we decided we weren't sure of the route. Rather than risk going off route we decided to shout over to a relatively old couple soloing up amphitheater buttress to ask them if they knew where the route went. I can't remember if their advice helped but we made it safely up the last couple of pitches.

Unfortunately this was not the end of our day. It may have been the end of the climb but we were still only four fifths of the way up the hill. The last part involved a large easy slab followed by a chossy (lots of loose rock) chimney. So after this most terrifying of climbs we had to solo up an easy but very exposed slab.

When we reached the top we found out that while Malc had decided that the spare guide book was too much hassle to bring up he appeared with a can of beer to drink. You must admit the man does have a certain style.

While I had brought my boots up with the intention of going down at the end for the rest of the gear there was no way I was going to go back down the gully to the side of the climb and then back up again so Ben put my boots on and went down with one of the other guys.

In retrospect this goes down as perhaps my favorite ever climb. The location is amazing, it's got a really big, wild feel to it, and the route is almost uniquely improbable. I will never understand how some guy in the 1920s (?), without any modern safety gear, looked at that cliff and thought 'yeah, I think I can see a route there'.

More than anything else it boosted my confidence and made me want to do more big hard routes. We'd been talking about A Dream of White Horses for some time, thinking we might be up to doing it by the end of next year. It might have been around this time that me and Mark started talking about doing it in the Autumn, after all we needed something new to work towards didn't we?

We spent a couple more days in Snowdonia scrambling and 'deep water soloing' at Lyn Gwynt. Andy would spend the days on the hills looking nervous and the evenings round the fire gibbering to himself. At one point he started telling us a story about some cheese floating through the air. I think he really had lost the plot a bit. Never mind, I had every confidence that he would recover in time for A Dream Of White Horses.

It was after this day I gained the name 'Broken Andy'