Friday 22 March 2013

The Black Cliff

Skimming through a March 1971 issue of the Observer the other day, I came across an Al Alvarez review of Chris Bonington's Annapurna South Face. Tucked at the end of the piece though, were a few words about The Black Cliff, a history of rock climbing on Clogwyn du'r Arddu, in north Wales.  As Alvarez points out, many of the climbers on the Annapurna climb crop up in Snowdonia book - including Don Whillans. Which is the perfect excuse to post a link to a footnote from Jim Perrin's The Villain, a biography of Whillans, that neatly illustrates the point...

 Alvarez was poetry editor and a critic for the Observer from 1956 to 1966, after which he continued to review books and write the occasional climbing article for the paper. See also Rock Climbers in Action in Snowdonia.

The Observer, 21 March 1971 (click on image to read)

No comments:

Post a Comment