THA T ’S ME


Ever visited Eric’s Café at Tremadog, North Wales? If so, you’ve probably been made a brew by the world’s most adventurous café owner: Eric Jones.


Eric Jones E


75, CAFÉ OWNER, TREMADOG


ric – who still looks as indestructible as the Tremadog rock itself – has run his café and campsite below the cliffs since 1979. And each time he’s come back from an adventure, he’s quietly pinned another jaw-dropping photo on to its wooden-panelled walls. He started parachuting and climbing in his twenties, after a tough start working on his parent’s farm, and soon discovered he had the appetite, and mental control, for both. This lead to some legendary soloing sessions on his home cliffs of Tremadog and an early ascent of the precarious North Face of the Eiger in 1970 – which he returned to solo in 1980, aged 43. Hitting the ground at 50 miles per hour after a jump went wrong, didn’t affect his skydiving passion: he’s jumped onto the North Pole and down the East Face of Cerro Torre in Patagonia. In 1991, he was part of a record-breaking four-man team to fl y the fi rst hot-air balloons over Everest. Aged 50, nowhere near ready to retire from adventure, he took up BASE jumping. Combining a lifelong mastery air and rock, he went on to make some death – and age – defying jumps: Angel Falls, Venezuela, into the Cave of Swallows, Mexico and off the Old Man of Hoy…aged 70. Married to Ann, he lives in a Welsh stone cottage opposite the café and has two children. He still goes climbing and BASE jumping – and makes one hell of a cup of tea.


I've probably made half a million cups of tea in my life.


I’ve always been a late developer. I started climbing at 26; soloed the Eiger when I was 43; got married when I was 48; started having kids when I was 50; started


BASE jumping at 52; jumped the Angel Falls at 61 and the Cave of Swallows at 66; and climbed the Old Man of Hoy at 70.


The most dangerous time in my life was riding motorbikes in my youth. I had six crashes, all lucky escapes. I always loved motorbikes and wanted to race them but back then you either needed a lot of money or a mechanical aptitude. I had neither. But everywhere I went, I went fl at out.


My dad fought in the First World War. I saw Warhorse, the Stephen Spielberg fi lm, the other day. It really brought it home. I remember he’d mention the suffering – lice in your trousers, mud up to your knees, being gassed – and we’d just say: “Oh, not dad on about the war again.” Now, I’d love to have spoken more to him about it, but you can’t change that stuff, can you?


I left school at 15. In 1918, the government offered people who had fought a farm; my dad rented one near Ruthin, so that’s where I grew up. But being gassed really affected my dad’s health. He became gradually less able to work and by the time I was 15, I had to leave school to run the farm. He died when I was 18.


My mother had a nervous breakdown. So I had to look after her too. That was really tough. I was also working in a quarry, breaking stones with a hammer. It was really hard, physical work, and in the winter I’d get back to fi nd my mother sitting at home without the fi re on, the house freezing. I still get nightmares today that some of the animals are dying or that I collected the hay too early. I still wasn’t even 20. It was a lot of pressure.


8 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944


Being called into National Service was an incredible relief in many ways. I applied to join the Paras but a bad bike crash meant they wouldn’t take me, so I ended up in the Military Police.


I’ve lost many friends to extreme sports. It's sad and frightening, but you carry on, trying to convince yourself that it won't happen to you. You’re very aware of the dangers.


Adrenaline can overload your brain. You can get brain lock, where everything freezes up, or tunnel vision, where you just focus on one thing.


I once hit the ground at 50 miles per hour. I opened my chute at 2,000 feet and the lines were twisted. The twists became even worse, and the parachute went berserk and started throwing me around the sky. If you don’t sort a problem by 1,200 feet then you cut away the chute and pull the reserve, but I became obsessed with straightening the lines: tunnel vision. I kept falling. I looked down, and got ground-rush, the earth coming toward me at terrifi c speed, and by the time I fi nally came to my senses and cut it free I was only at 400 feet. My reserve had no chance of deploying properly and I hit the ground just as the chute lines started to come tight. A truck was sent out to scrape up my body, but they very were surprised when I came crawling towards them. By pure chance, sliding down the edge of a steep-sided fl ood canal had absorbed the impact.


I never thought I was that great as a climber. I wasn't that strong and I never had great balance. It was the head game that I was good at.


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