Troll Wall...a very indirectly related event

Been following Andy Kirkpatrick’s recent epic Tweets from the Troll and it reminded me of and indirectly related event back in 2006.

I was booked to marshal a 3 Peak Event on Snowdon, all was looking good to go until the weather started turning nasty on the Friday. A massive front began moving in from the Atlantic, not boding well for the weekend. The event teams for the Snowdon leg usually start arriving around late afternoon, and attempt Snowdon during the night.
This year the charity had switched the route from the PYG to the Llanberis path, as the cafe at Pen Y Pass was getting a tight for space. The PYG in some ways is an easier route to ‘marshal’ during bad weather as the cwm provides some natural protection from the prevailing winds, at least until you hit the top of the zig zags. The Llanberis path is a motorway but far more open to the elements.

The wind picked up and it started raining in Llanberis but not so bad to cancel the event, the marshals started moving into position an hour before the first teams were due to arrive. There are usually 6 marshals for Snowdon, a head marshal based down in Llanberis, one at the start of the walk just as you come off the track, one at Halfway house, one at Clogwyn Station, one between Coglwyn and the summit to protect the accidental troll over Crib y Ddysgl, finally one at the top. I usually take the top slot. It has it’s +/-, on a good day it’s worth it for the view. If it’s bad weather it can be really bad. We all have radio’s but quite often it’s only the summit marshal who can get decent comm’s with everyone else on the mountain and base. Each team also has a radio for emergency use.

Heading up the track from Halfway to Clogwyn station the full force of the gathering storm started to hit. The wind speed was buffeting between 40 to 50mph and getting stronger as we gained height. Regularly feeding back the developing conditions to base, by the time we got to Clogwyn it had increased to 60-70mph and gusting well above, with driving rain. I headed up further towards the summit with one of the other marshals. The conditions on the mountain were now dangerous, not just for the competitors but also for the marshals, most of who were members of the Llanberis MR team. If you can get a tent up or bury yourself in a KISU then you can ride a storm OK, but to continually be on the lookout for around 40  teams of 5 or 6 people is impossible. Retreating from further up the path, but with some protection from the railway embankment this left 3 of us a Clogwyn with a wait to see if conditions improved, and assist with getting the teams back down safely.

It is usual practice to ‘lower the summit’ or close the event if conditions are this serious. Unable to set up and protect the route passed Clogwyn station we began to turnback teams from there. Most competitors were extremely glad of the decision.
It was at this point, that a call came over the radio from the other marshals lower down the mountain to look out for a lone walker/climber described reported as struggling or looking exhausted somewhere around the Clogwyn station area. After a shouty and windtorn conference between myself and the others, we concluded that we had seen someone earlier who seemed to fit the bill, but with only about 10m of visibility it was difficult to trace which way he was heading or guess where he might by now. A couple of us headed back down towards Halfway and met up with a figure struggling down the path.  He was clearly exhausted, after a hot drink and some chocolate we helped him back down towards Llanberis. Offering to pick up his gear we couldn’t believe how much stuff this chap had been hawking around in the storm, heavily sodden ropes, a portaledge, gear and a rucsac plus other packs etc. I could hardly lift the rope bag on its own! It had been his plan that day to solo in practice for an attempt at the Troll Wall, fair play he’d done a good job climbing cloggy but had been eventually taken to task by the atrocious weather conditions. Once down he was checked over by the ambulance and  i believe nipped of to Bangor  for a nights rest. 

Meanwhile........with everyone eventually back down safe at Llanberis, the main event marquee tent had taken on a life of its own, and was about to log a flight plan. We spent the remainder of the night repeatedly banging in pegs.

It was a few weeks later in July that i noticed the post on UK Climbing and put 2/2 together. I believe the climber involved survived his epic on the Troll Wall but at some personal cost. My colleague on Snowdon that night had chatted with the chap we gave assistance to about the current conditions of the Troll, and how bad he thought it was at the time. Andy K seemed to echo his worries in his post in 2006. Reading his recent ‘tweets from the troll’ this year, things haven’t got any less scary.