Another trip to Gogarth

Soames and Tom came this weekend. These are two guys who I really enjoy climbing with but have not really had chance to for almost about a year. This seems really stupid as I found out Soames lives about 30 minutes from my house. We planned for one day climbing at Gogarth. Soames used to live in North Wales and his favourite place in the world is Gogarth's Main Cliff.

Me and Toaf drove up on the Friday night, not too late. We had enough time to go to the pub for a few beers and then slink off to bed. By this point however Dan had arrived with Claire and a load more people to bring to the party. Ensued was a night of drinking, meaning the next day we all suffered badly with hangovers. We went to Llanberis and Pete's from an extended breakfast, we then drove out to Holyhead to wait out the weather.

Some would think of weather waiting as good for developing patience. I thought it good for recovering from hangover and waiting for Soames and Tom. Eventually (like predicted) at about 2pm the weather cleared up. We had a final brew in the cafe then headed off. Dan, Claire and the others went to climb on Holyhead Mountain. Me, Soames, Tom and Toaf headed for Main Cliff.

The walk in was damp underfoot. I tried in vain to stop the water entering my approach shoes, but they are so full of holes I lost anyway. We geared up at the very top of the descent and hid our bags(Soames said theres a theft problem). Main cliff is not an abseil, but a walk in. Sometimes I think abseiling would be safer. We had undercut grass paths, slippy mud, wet traverses on bad rock and a initial descent gully was loose as hell. All in all I found it a good laugh. Tom got a little gripped on one traverse and told me he couldn't understand why we were here. I told him I loved it and got an odd look.

After a rest and a well need smoke for some of the party, we flaked out the ropes for our two routes. Me and Toaf planned to assault Emulator (E1 5b) and Soames and Tom Imitator (VS 4c). I looked up at this massive dihedral groove with a little worry. Even though it got less steep near the top, the middle section looked steep as hell and I worried about the bridging. Either way I'd come to climb, so wasn't going to let something like a little self doubt stop me. That I and the fact that I'd equipped myself with the biggest rack I could so I could stitch it all the way if needed.

The initial groove was quite steep, but I went up on good incut holds finally placing one of my micro cams (I haven't had much chance to use them since I brought them, but Gogarth seems to be the place!). As I headed up to bridging got more and more technical, and I was praying my feet wouldn't pop off any of the smears. It was a hot day, and I kept chalking up. Each time I did I wondered how Toaf would fair as he'd left his chalk bag in the car. I got to the crux, well I stood beneath it on a couple of crap ledge. I'll be honest and say I thought about lowering off. I couldn't do this, I'd fall. There was nothing for your feet. Eventually after standing around for ages and placing some gear as high as I could, I went up. I didn't mean to of course, but I climb past where I could reverse it and had to carry on. One foot jammed in a crack and the other smearing. I ran it out hoping for a good ledge or a rest. Eventually I found one, looked down and smiled at Toaf. As I put in more gear I yelled down something like "your gonna love this". After a sting in the tail, I topped out and sat looking out to sea. I don't think I could have been happier at that moment.

I have to give it to Toaf he seconded the route well. He saved a cam that I'd almost lost and brought up may shoes to boot. You should have seen the amount of gear he topped out with. Rife with dehydration we moved together (ish) up the grass slope to a save belay and settled down to wait for Soames and Tom. We both fell asleep I think. When they arrived, me and Tom decided to attack Bezel and Toaf and Soames walked out. Tom took the first pitch and juts couldn't do it. I then tried and through way too much effort I gained the Belay. I proclaimed the pitch a sandbag as it was no way 4b. I then abseiled off and me and Tom walked out. The pitch in fact is a 4b (albeit a polished 4b) me and Tom just had not read the description well enough and went the wrong way.

Although Tom seemed to not enjoy the walk in, he just walked straight out with no problems. I guess the climbing at Gogarth made the walk in seem less serious. We headed back to the cars and back to the campsite for a night of heavy drinking.

Sunday rolled around and I woke up hurting. The amount I drank and stayed up till was making me suffer. Guess it was all my own fault. Instead of heading out to Gogarth again, we nipped to skyline buttress in Australia wall. A nice lazy day on slate seemed the order of the day. I lead what I thought was "Ronald Regan meets Docter Strangelove" (E2 5b). There was no way it was E2 or 5b, and it seemed to have been completely retrobolted. It was also falling apart, so I gave it a good clean on the way up. I checked the slate wiki and its a new route put up at F5b+ apparently. I skipped clipping most of the bolts anyway. Toaf lead "Billy two Tokes" and "Digital Delactation" which is a great route. Apparently the wind picked up when he went for the ledge and mantle. Then Tom lead "Digital Delactation" and skipped the finish due to heavy rain.

We then packed up and left, choose to sit around the cars having another beer before we headed to the pub and home. It was a good weekend. Going out with Soames has left me feeling like I've got alot stiull to learn, which is good as I have something to work towards. I'll take away alot from this weekend, and not all of it will be based around climbing.

(Soames [black hat] and Tom [stripy hat] chill with a beer)