North Ridge of Mt Moir

Enough of the stalling, time for action. The clear skies of the pre-dawn confirmed the forecast and quickened our preparations. We’d decided on the north ridge of Mt Moir as our ‘warm up’. Simply noted as “A long ridge climb on stunning rock” we took one of our half ropes and an anorexic rack just incase it was worth a little protection.

Climbing the scree to Homer Saddle was very straight forward and seemed not too crazily different from all my other mountain experiences, but I was in for a shock. Arriving at Homer Saddle, I nearly turned around and walked straight back. There in front of me was the colossal upper cirque of the Cleddau valley. A 700m drop to the Milford Rd lay but meters in front of me. I cast my eye to the south and gasped when I saw the knife edged and dreadfully exposed ridge that we were intending to climb. The non-insignificant bulk of Moir’s Mate seemed to be rudely interrupt our ridge. We’d need to go over rather than around and it looked scary.

My eyes traced the outlines of Mate’s Little Brother and Moir itself, familiar from hours spent studying the guide book. The understated tones of Craig Jefferies ran through my mind.. “it has been known to reduce climbers to crawling on all fours in places”

I could have easily turned around and gone the other way, but Cindy (bless her cotton socks) was full of keen and encouragement. After a little goading, I began southwards on the sharp ridge. The hardest parts of the scramble were right near the start. A sharp ‘Cheval’ led to an exposed hand traverse. We opted to do a pitch round the hand traverse, but put the rope away and soloed on.

The further I went, the more relaxed my immeadiate thoughts became, but more unnerved my inner self. I felt as though we were painting ourselves into a bit of a corner, with every move onwards meaning we had to do it in reverse. Several scrambles were no mistake moves, but all were on solid rock and good holds. Slowly I began to feel more at ease and even began to enjoy myself a little. Until, that is, we arrived at the shoulder of Moir’s Mate.

We’d brought about half our climbing gear and pretty much needed the other half to safely continue. Cindy and I mused about what it would mean to continue, but in the end we realized it would be foolish to do so. If only for halving the number of rappels, we wished for our other rope and protection. Dissapointed, we began the long careful journey back to the Saddle.

I felt a huge sigh of relief when we arrived on large flatness of the Saddle. Instantly I was no longer soloing, but tramping again; familiar and simple.

Back at the hut, we lamented our retreat, but took solace that it was only our first day. Now we had some experience of the terrain..