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Joe Brown - Formative Times 1948 - 1950
Up to 1948 Joe and his friends had operated largely in isolation - indeed they continued to operate outside the mainstream of the climbing world for several more years. They had not served the usual long apprenticeship with older more experienced climbers which was the norm at the time, but were self-taught, through adventure and mis-adventure, and approached the cliffs without any of the inhibitions and traditional values that might otherwise have held them back.  They had little idea of grades and grading but judged climbs solely according to their own opinions, assuming that if they could get up it, it could not be regarded as hard by other more experienced climbers.
Joining the Valkyrie Club in 1948 brought Joe into regular contact with other climbers, and together they explored the Peak District’s gritstone edges, with Joe now making a number of first ascents such as Freddie’s Finale (E1, 5b), The Trident (HVS, 5a) and Blue Lights Crack (HVS, 5a) all at Wimberry. Brown’s Eliminate on Froggat is also a climb of this period. Graded E2, 5b today, on the first ascent it was a far harder prospect than now (contra the comment in Peak Rock). He climbed in nailed boots relying on flakes only a fraction of an inch in thickness. Many of these flakes have now broken off leaving larger holds. Also at Frogatt he climbed Three Pebble Slab (E1,5a) and Valkyrie (HVS, 5a), while on Stanage Right Unconquerable (HVS, 5a) fell to him the following year.
1948 also saw Joe’s first serious foray into winter climbing with a camping trip to Ben Nevis which culminated with a forced evacuation from a high campsite in the face of a blizzard which literally destroyed the tent. The Glen Nevis bridge had been washed away, the river crossing proved epic, and Joe’s companion, Ludder, was found to have a broken leg, from an injury sustained descending the Red Burn five days previously!
At the end of 1948 the club met at Ogwen for Christmas.  Joe and his group were now climbing at every opportunity, with Joe making what was probably the first winter ascent of Hanging Garden Gully (IV) on Christmas Day. They also took the opportunity to top rope Suicide Wall which had been put up by Preston only 3 years earlier and had the fearsome reputation of being the hardest route in Wales. Given that they had just made a winter ascent it must also have been very cold indeed, and shows remarkable bravado even to think of attempting it!  Joe was to come back some years later to make the true second ascent but this was after he had completed his period of National Service.
The next day Joe borrowed five pegs from Ernie Phillips and with Wilf White went round to the Llanberis Pass to make an attempt on what was to become Cenotaph Corner. Given the fact it was winter, and Joe and his peers had only been climbing for 2 or 3 years, it was show of amazingly audacity even to try a major new route that had already been eyed up by the leading climbers of the day.  But they were no respecters of tradition, and climbing solely for their own pleasure were in no way overawed by such thoughts, but instead had the confidence of the young in their own abilities – indeed their ability had already been amply demonstrated in the exploits of the previous few days.  They also were not afraid of failing now only to return later.  It is easy to imagine that being on a high, having top roped what was regarded as the hardest route around, nothing would seem impossible. 

Seconded by Wilf White Joe reached the niche at 100ft, the exit from which is the crux of the whole climb. While trying to place a peg he let the peg hammer slip from his mouth, and it fell directly down the corner hitting his hapless second a glancing blow on the head. He descended to find Wilf dazed but conscious, and within a few minutes he had been encouraged to get back on the rock. Joe re-ascended to the niche, but he had used all five of the pegs they had with them, and had to retreat again. There was some subsequent criticism of the number of pegs Joe had used (Harding wrote in his 1950 Pass guide "with sufficient ironmongery and few scruples this corner could be ascended").  Such criticism was hardly justified, in part  because the corner was choked with grass, and was cleaned only in the course of Joe’s ascent (it was then a very different and harder proposition than doing it today), but also because of Harding’s own ethics , and indeed the prevailing ethics of the day.  When Harding made the first ascent of Ivy Sepulche in 1947 it was pre-cleaned from an abseil rope yet still required 2 points of aid on the first ascent.   Nearby, the first ascent of Kaisergebirge Wall in 1948 used 7 points of aid: "Nothing was barred, pegs, knotted bootlaces…" even (later) the famous bicycle crank added for aid and protection.  So such implicit criticism seems to have been born more out of envy than a sense of genuine indignation.

Joe was called up for 18 months National Service in late January 1949. Finding that there was no mountaineering corps, and that joining the Marines meant signing-on for a longer period, he served in the Ordnance Corps, with postings to Portsmouth, Leamington Spa and later Singapore.  This kept him off the crags for a large part of 1949/50.  But as far as possible his leave was spent with friends climbing either in the Peak District or Scotland.

During a period of leave at Easter 1949 that he made his first visit to Clogwyn d’ur Arddu - the Black Cliff. Joe easily jammed his way up the first pitch of Curving Crack, a pitch that was then usually then laybacked.  Impressed with the cliff he returned with Slim Sorrell later in the year when they proceeded to climb all 13 major routes that existed on the cliff. This was an target few of the leading climbers of the day had achieved, yet alone by a pair of youngsters during their first year at the crag. Having done the existing routes they turned his attention to the unclimbed lines. Starting up the ‘drainpipe crack’ (which had already climbed by Birtwistle) he attempted to take the cracks above on the right. The weather was poor, damp and cold (not that such thoughts ever deterred Joe and his companions from trying even the hardest routes), and Joe was climbing in socks. High on the second pitch, with his fingers over the top, but numb, he was unable to pull up any more and fell, cutting through two of the three strands of their much valued hemp hawser laid rope. He survived and the route remained for another day.
During National service Joe suffered one of several accidents to befall him when not climbing - breaking a leg in three places in a scrum for the tea urn. But three months later he was back, stealing a new route at Froggatt under the nose of Wilf White who had inadvisably told Joe he was thinking of giving it a go in a letter that Joe had received while still in hospital!  No doubt Wilf had imagined he had rather more breathing space before Joe hit the crags again, but arrived to find Joe already at the top.
 
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