The Hippo of Craig y Castell

I’m always banging on about dolerite: dolerite this, dolerite that, always bloody dolerite. Big G has got it bad too – we need help.

Dear NWB readers,
Does ‘August Boulder of the Month’ have to come in August?
Cors not! - That’s like saying “the next hold needs to be just so”... a neat sequence. What - do you want the holds all the same colour too? - Wrong place...we are outsdoors.
Tremadog in fact.

Out, in the jungle that encroaches the fan of rocks below Craig y Castell. The light creeps through the leaves and dapples the mysterious blocks. Ivy tendrils hang from every branch.
Its quiet. Too Quiet.
Then; around a corner we startle ‘The Hippo’
It freezes; Its eye motionless.
Its not the first time it has been disturbed.

It was the sloper-commentator Philip Targett who first recorded the presence of big game in these quarters and since then a privileged few have explored the habitat, locating several completely new species.

Their skins are composed of the perfect untouched crystal surfaces of Trem. Their forms; beyond the wildest dreams of the hunter.

Travel to the east and you will come to beasts rubbing themselves against the oak branches or basking in the sun above the tree line. Travel up to the west for equal reward. Oh yes. Great hump-backed things that have lived so long there is lichen growing on them.

This is the very stuff of dreams.

If you are in dense jungle on a sloper...you are not lost!

Love, Big G

Further Reading:

My Life Among the Slopers (Dr M Crook, Pedro’s Press)
This thrilling story captures the career of a sloper hunter from humble beginnings to major discoveries, sometimes tracking them for days before bringing them to ground with such basic old-school tools as a yard brush.

Relevant links: