On foot from Dolgellau, up Cader Road, a wind biting my cheek cold as government social policies. “Gwynt y dwyrain, gwynt o draed y meirwon” (East wind, wind from the feet of the dead)! I flinched before it, turned aside for the Foxes’ Path that climbs a great slope of red scree to the east of the summit.
It was 1992 when I last came this way. That scree slope is the simple explanation – one of the most unpleasant ascents on any British mountain, fraught and unstable even in descent. I remember running down it in 1961, and turning a complete somersault as the block I’d landed on chose to career off downhill. No harm done when you’re young, but at the age of worn knees and torn ligaments , it’s best avoided.
My last visit was with the friend and mentor from whom I inherited this diary. On a fitfully bright January day, Bill Condry lured me down to Cadair, with a scheme to be earliest that year to record the flowering of purple saxifrage. I was scolded about keeping away from rocks and summits, and he taught me to use my eyes and brain; told me he’d not been all the way up this path since 1923. He confided that our mutual friend Dewi Jones of Penygroes had recorded purple saxifrage flowering on Snowdon on 26 January. He wanted to beat him. I hooted with laughter, suggested that his tribe of botanists were every bit as competitive as my rock-climbing clan. Gunmetal impasto of Llyn Gafr joggled the reflections. We circled to bluffs beyond. Among tangles of thyme, purple saxifrage in profusion, not yet in flower. His hands, like a lover’s, caressed the leaves and then parted them to view.
It was St David’s Day, the centenary of Bill’s birth: I recalled his ecstatic expression; recited examples of his informed, unadorned style; remembered his wryness, humour, self-effacement, immersion in contemplation of the object.
Snow flurried past, obscuring all. The saxifrage was not in flower. I turned back into the bitter wind.
A William Condry Reader, edited by Jim Perrin, is published by Gomer Press at £14.99
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion