Paul Pritchard

Climbed between 16th october 1986 and 29th jan 1987.

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.149995619790657/149996786457207

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.149995619790657/149995939790625

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=117802899676596&set=a.117799293010290

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.149995619790657/149997853123767

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.149995619790657/149998286457057

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.140702324053320/140704414053111

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=117802753009944&set=a.117799293010290

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=117802933009926&set=a.117799293010290

https://www.facebook.com/rockarchivist/photos/a.149995619790657/149998133123739

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/esgair_maen_gwyn_scimitar_ridge-706/king_wad-3775

I was drinking whisky in the Padarn Lake Hotel with Gwion Hughes, who I was living with at the time, when suddenly I had a smart idea. ‘I have an excellent new climb to do. Why don’t we go climbing?’ The pair of us swayed and staggered up to the vast Rainbow Slab. The climb I had seen was a long hairline fracture splitting the left side of the slab. And I had the misguided notion to climb it on sight, without pre-inspection from a rope – and a little bit intoxicated. I threw a string of micro-wires, tiny brass-headed nuts, in the seam, without the least regard for my safety. The climbing was really quite difficult and became increasingly so. Nevertheless, I carried on with scant regard for my personal safety. I still remember attempting to pull on a depression into which you could place flat a fifty-pence piece: a strange, white pocket in a sea of blue-grey slate. I studied it for what seemed like an eternity and searched for my next hold. My shoe edges were set on mere ripples in the featureless slab. I began to slip and then accelerated down the slab, taking a twenty-five-metre fall. The rope burned through the lycra behind my knee. I came to a halt inches from the ground. [1]

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/CjvzOT-Shsf/