I'm sure this is unanswerable, but when is it likely that Tryfan was first climbed? People have been living in Snowdonia for thousands of years but would the ancients have bothered climbing Tryfan?
I think the attitude of most of the world's population, especially those who live and work in mountains, is that it's pointless to climb a mountain? Anecdotally I see this a lot: how many Welsh inhabitants of Llanberis would ever go up Snowdon? I know a few farmers in Scotland and they have never been higher up their mountain than the wall at the top of their fields.
If we go with my completly un-proven hypothesis that going up mountains is a modern idea only practiced by people of lesuire, then it's possible that Tryfan wasn't climbed in ancient times. Maybe ancient people probably had to ration their calory expenditure on things that mattered like finding food, and getting injured back then was bad news.
However, I also think that human nature probably hasn't changed much over the milennia and there must have been some people thousands of years ago who wondered if they could get up the obvious pointy mountain, or maybe they wanted to see the view.
And in less ancient times, would welsh natives in Roman or medieval times have wanted to climb tryfan? Is there any evidence of when it was first climbed?
My experience from the Alps & Pyrenees is that hunters & shepherds have been most places that where accessible to them. Suspect Tryfan would have been climbed a long time ago
OK good point, it's likely that going up Tryfan was work for somebody a long time ago. I often forget that Snowdonia used to be warm and forested so it's easy to imagine a hunter ending up on the tops as part of the chase etc.
A place of such strategic advantage, with a view (sometimes) of a valley that offered the easiest northern way through to Anglesey, would have been climbed as long as there were people to defend their territory and who wanted to control passage through the Ogwen valley.
The first ascent probably came not long after the first people came to the region. Bronze age certainly, stone age probably. And it would have had nothing to do with the motivations you suggest, but the more basic ones of defending and controlling passage through the place in which you lived.
T.
Thanks. I knew I was making a lot of modern assumptions about motivation! I wonder what the last UK mountin to be summited was, the Inn Pin probably?
It is worth reading Ian Mitchell's 'Scotland's Mountains before the Mountaineers' on the broader theme of historic British mountain ascents.
When most people were illiterate, oral traditions or place names have to be used to gain any insight into historical mountain ascents.
I would hazard a broad guess, that Tryfan was probably climbed at least over 5000 years ago by neolithic nomadic people. Even that gives them about 5000 years to get their climbing boots on after the last ice age.
Tryfan, warm and forested? Would you Adam an' Eve it?
Don't know about Tryfan, but Ingleborough has ancient settlement remains on the top.
Neanderthals about 200,000 years ago. it's not Everest
You might like mountains of the mind by Robert Macfarlane
Some point in the last 12,000 years when the last ice retreated. Of course it would have likely existed before then, only higher.
I believe from time immemorial. It has always been an unanswered question how naturally positioned Adam and Eve are, with the jury roughly divided between those saying they're 100 per cent natural and those saying they were probably moved or at least fashioned to some extent by man. Whatever, those summit stones probably had the same quasi-religious significance of many standing stones. (Q-r, because they weren't quite religious in the modern sense, but multiple-purpose places of worship of the unknown/observation of the heavens/seasonal 'feast-days', etc.) Early man would have been 100 per cent capable of scrambling all over the mountain (but not doing some of the harder rock climbs ... even if they'd been able to, it probably wouldn't have occurred to them to try). Also, it's very unlikely they ever bothered to go up there for fun. They were far too busy just hunting and fishing to stay alive, etc.
Allegedly it was Sgurr Coire an Lochain on Skye. Climbed by Collie, Mackenzie, Naismith and Howell in 1896.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/165143940728168/permalink/710318599544030/?...
I
> Allegedly it was Sgurr Coire an Lochain on Skye. Climbed by Collie, Mackenzie, Naismith and Howell in 1896.
I think that is literally and simply factually correct. Of course, lots of harder pinnacles were climbed much later, but that's a different subject.
Curious about the top of Tryfan being forested... really?
Thanks for your detailed answer. I always assumed that ancient people could easily get up Tryfan if they wanted to. I was wondering if they would have wanted to? But it seems they did. Do you have a source for Adam and Eve being placed there by people? I hope it's true actually that would be really special.
I don't think Tryfan would have been forested but there was a lot more forest so it's easy to imagine a hunted animal running up the mountain about the tree line or going to ground among the rocks.
> I believe from time immemorial. It has always been an unanswered question how naturally positioned Adam and Eve are, with the jury roughly divided between those saying they're 100 per cent natural and those saying they were probably moved or at least fashioned to some extent by man. Whatever, those summit stones probably had the same quasi-religious significance of many standing stones. (Q-r, because they weren't quite religious in the modern sense, but multiple-purpose places of worship of the unknown/observation of the heavens/seasonal 'feast-days', etc.)
Driving down the Ogwen Valley around ten years ago on a cloudless moonlit night with a full moon, I recall remarking to my two mates on the car how striking Adam an Eve were, being very prominent on the summit, as the pale rock appeared to shine in the moonlight. The following morning we climbed to the summit and had this ‘natural vs man made’ discussion about Adam and Eve; one of my mates (a geologist by training) suggested it was perfectly feasible for them to have been erected by man, adding, “using the same techniques they used to built Stonehenge...”.
> It has always been an unanswered question how naturally positioned Adam and Eve are
No, I don't think that's true.
Naturally positioned, as in by the forces of nature, yes. By the hand of man, no; that's just romantic fantasy. The answer is plain.
T.
Yes, it's one of the beauties of Tryfan, the capping beauty if you like, that it has those two mysterious, perfect summit stones.
> Do you have a source for Adam and Eve being placed there by people? I hope it's true actually that would be really special.
No, there are no sources whatever that I've come across, and I did a huge amount of research for my first book, that covered Snowdonia.
> Neanderthals about 200,000 years ago. it's not Everest
not strictly speaking human... therefore not the first ascent. if we are going to include neandathals then why not birds, lizards, bears etc?
Thank you for starting this thread, I have an internal dichotomy about some of the opposing ideas brought up.
The flat tops, particularly of the southern one, have never looked completely natural to me. For two summit stones to be like that is very weird and wonderful. I can't think of any other mountain that has such thought provoking 'natural' summit rocks.
The problem is it's hard to tell if something that looks significant and intentional to us is nature-placed or human-placed. For example look at this circular lake, 20km accross, in Canada:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.2866973,-68.9279901,171531m/data=!3m1!1e3
An alien race might be forgiven for thinking that we made that but it's entirely natural. And they might think the same about giant's causeway.
With glaciers having moved millions of rocks around Wales, some of them are going to look human-placed to us just by statistics. Admittedly they are bang on the top of an abvious pointy mountain but you have other arrangements like the cantilever stone and the cannon.
There isn't actually a scientific definition of special or natural when it comes to shapes and arrangements, it's all a bit wishy-washy e.g. 'that stone looks odd'.
I do want to believe that Adam and Eve are stone-age monuments but it sounds like it is just unknowable. How would it be proved? I've googled it and found no studies or mention of it.
There was a programme on TV recently which featured people who live and work on Snowdon.
One of those featured was a farmer who has, if I remember correctly, spent all his life farming on the mountain.
Until the programme was made he’d never been to the summit of Snowdon as he couldn’t see the point of doing so.
> control passage through the Ogwen valley
Not sure how you're going to control passage through the valley from up there in the days before radios, mortars etc. Sure somebody could wave a flag - and be seen by both you and the approaching foe.
If you look at where castles & watchtowers are in alpine valleys, they're on little steep rocky prominences near the road/river, not way up on the summits. Inaccessible enough to defend but close enough to intervene. Rather like Dolbadarn in fact.
My money's on the hunters & shepherds.
It would also depend on tree cover, with even a partially forested valley you wouldn't get sweeping open views down nant francon etc.
> There was a programme on TV recently which featured people who live and work on Snowdon.
> One of those featured was a farmer who has, if I remember correctly, spent all his life farming on the mountain.
> Until the programme was made he’d never been to the summit of Snowdon as he couldn’t see the point of doing so.
I think we are applying our own draw to the mountains to others. There has to be something potentially beneficial in it, search for food, certain rocks for tools, worship or ceremony etc..
Food; none unless it ran there.
Rocks; it's not a source of flint etc. But they may have explored there. If you were hunting around the flanks then heather terrace is an efficient natural link to take around to the bwlch.
Burial. High ground for burial cairns was common, but as far I know there aren't any. 2 people, they didn't worship people real or imaginary, it would likely be sun related etc.. there are no other pairs of similar stones anywhere that I know of.
Any geologist could look and compare the rocks to those around them to see if they are on their original plane. It's extremely hard for a placed vertical rock to stay there when you factor in freeze and thaw, there would need to be stone packing at their bases and so on.
> The flat tops, particularly of the southern one, have never looked completely natural to me. For two summit stones to be like that is very weird and wonderful. I can't think of any other mountain that has such thought provoking 'natural' summit rocks.
Helm Crag, Grasmere?
> I'm sure this is unanswerable, but when is it likely that Tryfan was first climbed?......
First ascent, Adam, 99000 BC. Eve brought the sandwiches. I think
They never came down!
If the rocks were originally right on the summit but laid down horizontally, and people just stood them up, would a geologist be able to find evidence for that?
> If the rocks were originally right on the summit but laid down horizontally, and people just stood them up, would a geologist be able to find evidence for that?
Not guaranteed as it tends to form enmasse, rather than in layers like limestone. But it can form from lava flows with the right cooling, have very small gas pockets etc. Which 'should' have some orientation. Weathering will differ from exposed and buried too. As well as lichen growth, as some grow exceedingly slowly at altitude.
The stones around the base will be the biggest clue. With freeze and thaw action they'd have extremely tightly packed in bed rock to prevent any movement.
There are other formations of similar height and same rock; cantilever, canon and castle of the winds, but none of these resemble Adam and eve.
BTW, I think the names 'Adam' and 'Eve' are a relatively modern invention. The early writers like Haskett Smith and the Abrahams simply refer to them as the 'summit stones'. Earliest reference I can find (after a not very long search) is by Wilfrid Noyce in 'Snowdon Biography', 1957.
Another not very useful fact (result of Googling) that I didn't know, in Welsh they're called 'Sion a Siân'.
I think they would be more likely to be man-placed if there were similar stones on the tops of other peaks but I can't think of any. It would have been a nice story though if they were intentional.
If sheep and/or goats can get up there, then shepherds will have almost certainly have to have gone and fetched them. I've seen goats pretty high on the North Ridge before.
> I believe from time immemorial.
That could be as recently as 5 July 1189!
> First ascent, Adam, 99000 BC. Eve brought the sandwiches. I think
I've just checked Genesis - she made an apple crumble.
> If sheep and/or goats can get up there, then shepherds will have almost certainly have to have gone and fetched them. I've seen goats pretty high on the North Ridge before.
There was a whole herd of goats on the summit last time I was there!
Amazing though this circular lake is, and I've flown over it many many times and gawped every time, I'm sad to tell you that it's a reservoir. Damming the outflow of the river system that runs through a meteorite impact crater, and joining the ring of lakes that were naturally there before, but man made nonetheless.
Gte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_Reservoir?wprov=sfti1
Oops! But you still have a very circular pair of concentric contours don't you, and the dam has just highlighted it?
Punishment Detail, Legio XXXX, see that pointy hill?
Report to Sextus Decimus on the Summit, last 10 down will be put into a hole in the ground up to the neck and the rest of you will bash their heads with mallets as per the manual of military law for leaving your post. Goooo!
> I can't think of any other mountain that has such thought provoking 'natural' summit rocks.
Cathedral Peak?
The In Pinn?
Or Bidean a'Chabair which was entertaining in wintery conditions.
I'm often bemused by stuff like this. You're probably making a massive assumption, that people 10,000 years ago, were somehow massively different to us. "The Ancients" were people who look exactly the same as us, have the same level of intelligence, the same drive, the same curiosity. To assume that no one in the British Isles thought, I wonder what's over that ridge, I wonder what's at the top of that hill, is to fall in to the trap of thinking that people who lived in the British Isles that recently were knuckle dragging cave men. Which is the problem here, most people assume (mistakenly) that anyone over a few thousand years ago, was a 'caveman' eg, Ug and Og, wearing a small fur wrap around their delicates and little else. Neolithic societies were complex, their people intelligent and motivated, yet the common assumption that they were knuckle draggers, is honestly daft.
Obviously with my archaeologist hat on, there's probably little to no evidence of people being on the summit of tryfan (or any other hill in the UK). But still it seems unlikely that it's only in the last few 100 years of human existance that people didn't walk out into the hills.
So yeah, I'd go with, people did walk up hills, pretty much from the off. I'm quite sure that it was a small number of people, but Tryfan has most likely been walked up a number of times since people established themselves in the British Isles after the last ice age.
> not strictly speaking human... therefore not the first ascent. if we are going to include neandathals then why not birds, lizards, bears etc?
That’s a bit disrespectful of our ancestors of only 2000 generations ago.
> not strictly speaking human... therefore not the first ascent. if we are going to include neandathals then why not birds, lizards, bears etc?
If a H. sapiens watched a H. neanderthalensis climb Tryfan and then climbed it themselves in a single attempt with no falls they could still claim a flash at least, surely? Depending on how well the two species were able to communicate we may have to relegate it to a beta flash, granted.
No neolithic cafe remains on Snowden, though.
I have it on good authority that it was first climbed by "Aonach eagach is the best"...
Many UK summits were much warmer in the past, many hilltop settlements existed, impossible now, too cold, so it would have been climbed and probably worshipped or lived on during those warmer epochs.
DC
You've got the wrong end of the stick sorry. I was making no assumptions about people a few thousand years ago being less intelligent, less motivated, less brave etc. I am aware of the levels of sophistication needed to build stone circles, or the famous gold cape which was found in Mold.
I was assuming that stone-age humans are in fact psychologically the same as modern humans, the vast majority of which have little to no interest in walking up mountains! It's just us hill folk that are the anomaly. I was also assuming that stone-age humans would be a lot busier, hence, would they have bothered? I actually think they did bother, I was just asking the question.
The Iron Age fort on top of Yr Eifl just down the road on the Lleyn is firm evidence the older folk didn’t mind a bit of a climb.
> The flat tops, particularly of the southern one, have never looked completely natural to me. For two summit stones to be like that is very weird and wonderful. I can't think of any other mountain that has such thought provoking 'natural' summit rocks.
Cantilever stone?
There is that huge fort on Tri Ceiri as well. I wonder how far back the fortification of some of the rounder summits goes, I was wondering about thousands of years ago (like 2000 BC). I did wonder about Tryfan though as you couldn't really use it as a fort.
The second BMC Members Open Forum webinar took place on 20 March. Recently-appointed BMC CEO Paul Ratcliffe, President Andy Syme and Chair Roger Murray shared updates on staff changes, new and ongoing initiatives, insurance policy changes and the current...