Rannoch Mountaineering Club 

www.climbrannoch.co.uk

Rediscovering the Edge – By Brian Mattock

September 2003

Emma and  I were on a long weekend in the Gower having had pleasant day getting there via Monmouth.  The sun shone, the sand glisaned and the sea sparkled.  We’d had a couple of great days walking swimming snorkelling and I’d even bagged a few solo routes at Three Cliff Bay.  It was Sunday and the tides were right for a visit to Mewslade Bay.  Surely one of the most beautiful coastal places in Britain, in fact probably the world, but luckily not too popular as it involves a kilometre walk in and is very tidal – the combination of which is usually way too much for the British Public.  Those who persist are rewarded by a boundless sandy beach, with either a snorkelling paradise, or body boarding surf, rock pools and a stunning limestone rock architecture coming straight out of the beach. (or the sea if you’ve got the tide wrong).  The Gower has a lot of good rock routes, and a good fistful in the middle grades but invariably gets overlooked for the almost infinite choice at Pembroke – good: the routes are rarely crowded.

Out of the beach of Mewslade I saw again the cathedral like monument of ‘White Edge’ ascending some 200ft straight off the sand.  I recalled my last venture back in 1983 with Steve Bissell when a helplessly hot climbing afternoon has resorted to cricket on the beach with a family short of fielders.  After a cooling dip Steve and I had set out on White Edge for an end of day solo.  After all it was only V Diff.  After Steve seriously de-tuned himself by pulling off a 60lb block, but then again he could pull holds off any route, we believed the bit in the guide book  about it being ‘a bit loose’.  But that was then and this was now….

We found a nice spot on the beach and Emma got kitted up with her snorkel and was off, leaving me with my rock boots and the thought of White Edge.  Thirty feet of a lesser V Diff leads to the bottom of ‘the edge’ proper, I reflect that its not every climbing day your are having to clean the sea washed sand off your boots before you set off.  The edge itself is stunning and if more widely known about would have maybe made it into classic rock, though first climbed in 1964 it remains today an obscure route; shunned by the ‘hard’ climbers for its reputed looseness and feared by the V Diff climbers for its intimidation,  The first easy 40ft lead up to a steeper section where thought and care are required.  Holds are plentiful but the rock is not above suspicion.  A pedestal is arrived at; the 300 degree view is stunning, but so is the exposure.  It is intimidating and I don’t remember my mouth being this dry 20 years ago.  I’m aware of the sun on my back now, reflection off the white rock, reflection on no chalk. A cool dark jam, reflection and calm and Emma a dot on the beach looking up a lifetime away.  There is a choice of grooves at the top – the guide says left, but I haven’t read that – after 20 years this is ‘on site’; “choose life” choose left – I do.  I pull over onto the grass and strangely terraced top.  Mewslade Bay feels better than ever, looks it to.

Emma said she got a little scared watching, I guess I did too.  We went for a swim…