A 300 ft free fall down a snowfield under the Dent du Requin, flashbacks which I can still playback in my mind 54.5 years later. Then a traumatic moment of hurried excavation to create ledge on the steepest piece of snow ever imaginable and the thank god moments for hours spent practicing ice axe arrests before the impact of the sheer drop to the glacier below sank in.
Nothing to be proud of because youthful foolhardiness and lack of experience put us in a position we should not have been in. Having sat in many climbing pubs and listened to so many of these types experiences being related, I have wondered if they are told to impress or warn others.
In the Pen y Gurig on night I recall sitting with a group I had climbed with for some years, a nearby group were relating tale about the 1963 winter, when Bill's Barn was nearly completely covered with a snow drift and a tunnel of 10-15ft had been made from the top half of the barn door for a way in and out. The privy was some distance away across an open space. A totally naked climber had gone out for relief in the early hours and could not find his way back in. Much relish was expressed how they had save his life from hypothermia, the onset of frostbite and other unimaginable conditions.
This was listened to with great amusement by my group of friends, as they knew that they were sitting with that climber. He habitually slept in the raw in a Black's Polar sleeping bag, the beery flush of several hours carousing in Bethesda was the reason for not joining the cattle at the other end of the barn and taking the Eskimos' route out too the privy, which was all frozen up and serving no purpose. Then the overpowering and breathtaking view of the Carnedds and Tryfan with a backdrop of a clear star panorama was enough to take time to stand and stare. A full moon over Bill's farmhouse was enough to shroud the snow covered barn in pitch black, a desperate holler was required to get a torch shone from within.
All those in the barn saw was a lightning flash of naked flesh then a Black's Polar sleeping bag imitating a sackfull of ferrets and not the tale of drama of near Scot of the Antarctic proportions being related by that nearby group.