Dream of White Horses

On Saturday evening after work I met up with Andy at South Stack car park and we headed off to Wen Zawn to climb A Dream of White Horses HVS 5a, 5a, 4c, 4c. This is a legendary route and I have wanted to climb it for some time. We abseiled down to the Wen ledges and climbed the latter half of the 1st pitch as the tide was not low enough to do the start of it. We shared pitches although it didn't really make any difference whether leading or seconding as the route is a monster traverse around the zawn and any fall by leader or second will require a lot of prussiking! There are more photos on my gallery page.

Intro to Climbing Course

This weekend I was joined by Stuart, Kelly, Becky & Kevin for an intro to climbing course. We headed to Holyhead Mountain on Anglesey on Saturday and climbed a range of routes including my favorite Severe "New Boots & Panties". We had some beautiful sunshine all day and some great climbing.

On Sunday we headed to Llangollen for a day of Sport climbing. Again we got loads of climbing done and an abseil off the top of the quarry.

Old Man of Hoy, Bank Holiday Adventure

8:30 Friday morning Sid, Andy, Tom and I left Worcester headed for the Orkney Islands, in particular the Island of Hoy. By 10:00am we were sat in stationary traffic on the M6! Thanks to the wonders of Sat Nav we found a burger bar somewhere in Staffordshire and then slowly wound our way North.
We arrived in the port of Scrabster at the far North of Scotland at about 9:00pm, just 20 miles away from John O Groats. In no time at all the perfect camp site was found behind a stone barn on a neatly ploughed field but with handy parking for the car! After a brief look at the ferry timetable we decided an early start would be in order to catch the 9:00am ferry. The next morning we were proud to claim our first place in the queue, only to establish that there wasn't a ferry until 12;00pm!
We arrived on Hoy at 3:30pm and having been given a shocking forecast for Sunday decided to route march across to the Old Man.

For those that haven't heard of it before the Old Man is the sea stack shown in the photo. It was first climbed by Chris Bonnington and chums and was the subject a year later of a BBC outside broadcast with an all star cast. It is graded E1 4b, 5b, 4b, 4c.
The route starts at the bottom of a broken pillar at the end of a walkway that links the stack to Hoy. This walkway was once an arch that collapsed 100 years ago to form a causeway. We started at about 5:00pm with a guidebook time of 6 hours. I teamed up with Tom who was on his 2nd ever multi pitch route! The traditional climbing calls were scrapped and replaced with "safe" and "GO". It was dry but very windy so things needed to be simple and of course with the threat of darkness fast!
The first pitch is straightforward and allows you to get your head into gear before the crux second pitch. This involves a delicate traverse followed by and offwidth chimney through two overhangs. The holds were all very dirty covered in sand and I was glad of the wooden wedges left in place by Bonningtons team! Tom took over the lead on the 4th and final pitch which was superb, a steep crack with good holds and lots of gear and we topped out to a very windy summit.
We decided to use 4 abs to avoid rope jams with the last one being particularly spectacular hanging free over the sea. We reached the ground at about 9:00pm.
Sid and Andy joined us a little while later, all of us ecstatic and knackered! We made our way back to Rackwick bay and slept in the car until it was light enough to find the bothy and sleep some more!
You can view more photos and a short film will follow on my gallery pages, follow the link on the right.

Escaping another childrens party

My two youngest boys were at a childrens party yesterday afternoon whilst Josh and I were climbing at Symonds Yat. This afternoon they had another one and I came perilously close to going! Fortunately a good friend of mine, Terry, came round for lunch and fancied an afternoon cragging. We headed back down to Symonds Yat with Josh and climbed Snoozing Susan. This is Symonds Yats only alpine route which can be 3 pitches, admittedly the 2nd pitch is only a walk though! It is a lovely V Diff and we managed to avoid the rain. We then headed down to the South End and did a 35m abseil over the mouth of a large cave, known locally as "Alecs Ab".

Symonds Yat with Josh

I have got this weekend off so after a morning at home I took Josh, my eldest son, to sample the delights of our local crag, Symonds Yat. Josh has climbed there before but only in a top rope environment a couple of years ago. We abseiled down to the foot of my favourite climb, the long stone pinnacle. We climbed the easiest route, Vertigo (severe) and sunbathed on the top looking down the river Wye. We did another short route afterwards and then enjoyed tea and cakes in the cafe.

Grooved Arete, Tryfan

Claire joined Simon and I today for a day of rock climbing on warm rock in the sunshine. On days like today you wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world and I definitely have the best job! We walked up to the Heather Terrace on Tryfan and climbed Grooved Arete - an 8 pitch Hard Very Difficult rock climb that finishes on the summit ridge of my favorite mountain in North Wales. The photos show the first pitch complete with rock graffiti (why do people still do this - some cretin has scratched their name not far from here), Simon & Claire on the Knights move, Claire on belay and climbing pitch 7. Another brilliant day! Photos can be viewed at the gallery.

Main Wall & Gambit Climb

Regular client and friend Simon decided he wanted to celebrate his 40th birthday in style - he couldn't think of anything and so booked me for a couple of days instead! The plan was to have a day of rock climbing with just the two of us and then a day of easier climbing or scrambling with his wife Claire joining us. Originally we had planned an overnight bivvy as well but this got binned with a wet night forecast.

Today we headed up into Cwm Glas and climbed Main Wall and then Gambit Climb.
Main Wall is a 6 pitch Hard Severe that climbs through some outrageous mountain architecture and has some truly awesome settings. Check out Simon on the hanging belay! There are one or two places where you have to look down at your feet and all you see is a big, big drop! The sun was shining all day giving us the warmest day of the year so far so once we had topped out we headed upto the Clogwyn-y-Person Arete abd climbed Gambit Climb. This is a 5 pitch Severe that is described in the guidebook as the best easy climb in North Wales! It was great and we then scrambled up the arete, across the ridge of Crib Y Ddysgl and back down for beer! You can view all of the photos at my gallery - click on the link on the right of this page.

Milestone Buttress

It was a cold and wet day today with 50 mph winds and still lots of snow on the tops meaning that we needed to stay low. The Milestone Buttress was the obvious choice and we did the grade 3 scramble across the front of the buttress before abbing off for the practice!