Actaully there was no gneiss involved but I couldn't help the play on word what with being a rock climbing, likely geology and just having read this post onf UKC (here). Having said all that, it was actually a really nice weekend. I visited Tom's bridge in Bridgenorth, which was ok, visited Young Soames who's given me some beetroot from his garden, but I'm not entirely sure how to cook it. Probably the best thing he gave us was a good weather report for north wales. A plan was hatched.
So I had another weekend in the ogwen valley and this time it was with Rach. We just headed out for a days climbing on a bigger mountain route. Rach isn't really a fan of single pitch climbing, prefering to get some more mileage for the amount of faff (racking up, flaking ropes, recoiling, descending etc) so longer mulitpitch routes are really her bag. Originally we'd planned to head to the forest of dean area in quest of some sandstone and bunter pebble bed bouldering but this plan was superseeded by mountains.
Our plan was to go up and do Sub-cneifon Rib and then Cneifon Arete, but we only managed to do the first one. We drove over nice and early, resisting the urge to stop at the Rhug estate before pulling up and parking next to the bouldering area in Ogwen. I know I actually moaned about me not paying for parking in the last post, but in this instance it was nice to get away from everyone. We actually kick started the day by trying the little (emphasis on little) squeeze that is formed by a dropped flake. I've tried this a few times before and got stuck, like very stuck each time and have been forced to retreat. This time I managed it and it was so scary! Either it's thin enough or I'm large enough that I need to breathe out and compress my chest to squeeze it though. After a few abortive attempts I managed it but then my ass got stuck! Everytime I was tensed I couldn't get it through to had to pull myself up on my arms, panicing like mad. I really want to go caving again...
Back to the climbing we took a nice easy stroll into the crag, this time going to the little quarry instead of the path all the way round. At the base of the route we settled down for a little rest before climbing when a team of three people turned up. They all looked a little more mountaineery than us and Rachel and I agreed that it would be better if they went ahead. Rach andc I were in no rush and decided that we could do without thew hassle of someone on our tail, it'd be much nicer to just climb unrushed. So they set off and we relaxed in the... well it wasn't quite sunshine, but it wasn't raining. I guess we just relax in the atmosphere, praying it wouldn't rain. It was quite cool to watch the rain falling on Anglesey miles away. The wind was pulling it all along the coast so it didn't really touch the mountains.
Then it was time to get a move on. Rachel took the first lead but we didn't actually follow the pitches in the guidebook and Rach lead off taking a line as and where she saw fit. She climbed really well in her normal style with is the chimney up everything. This isn't a disservice to her climbing ability but I recon in a former life she was definatly a mighty mountianeer with a great white hoarfrost encrusted beard who ploughed up VDiffs and Severes regardless of conditions. She climbs very traditionally. She climbed up to a small niche and belayed bringing me up. I then took the little groove above and belayed as soon as the difficulties had passed. My idea was that Rach would then lead off and she would have more time on the sharp end however when I brought her up, gave her the rack and she headed off it was about 10ft before she got to a massive ledge and yelled down to me she was safe.
So I followed her up and took in a a bunch of coils as she scrambled up the next short section passing the sticking out rock thing. I think opted for a "russian belay" (don't know where I've picked that term up from but it is used to describe the pulling in of rope with a climber on the end, hand over hand) and brought me up. By now we'd caught up with the party who'd set off before us so we settled down and had some lunch. As we lunched the guy leading came up to a definate crux in the next pitch and seemed to agonise about the next few moves. This was the kind of move that would be described by a hard climber as "interesting" and a lesser (?) climber as well... bloody hard for VD. When he'd done the move and brought his seconds up, we set off hot on thier tail. Rach lead off first but took one look at the bloody hard/interesting move decided against it. I was sent up on the lead and soon delt with the crux but came up behind the party in front. Instead of standing around on the lead I belayed and brought up Rach in the mean time and she led off to top out.
We had a nice relaxed walk off after deciding to bin the idea of climbing the Cneifon Arete, so headed down before any midges were about. We spent the day climbing as light as we could (although I still carried a massive rack) using a skinny single 60 metre rope and a bandolier. We actually managed to climb with only the 1 sack on, leaving the leader free to climb bagless.
Our plan was to go up and do Sub-cneifon Rib and then Cneifon Arete, but we only managed to do the first one. We drove over nice and early, resisting the urge to stop at the Rhug estate before pulling up and parking next to the bouldering area in Ogwen. I know I actually moaned about me not paying for parking in the last post, but in this instance it was nice to get away from everyone. We actually kick started the day by trying the little (emphasis on little) squeeze that is formed by a dropped flake. I've tried this a few times before and got stuck, like very stuck each time and have been forced to retreat. This time I managed it and it was so scary! Either it's thin enough or I'm large enough that I need to breathe out and compress my chest to squeeze it though. After a few abortive attempts I managed it but then my ass got stuck! Everytime I was tensed I couldn't get it through to had to pull myself up on my arms, panicing like mad. I really want to go caving again...
Back to the climbing we took a nice easy stroll into the crag, this time going to the little quarry instead of the path all the way round. At the base of the route we settled down for a little rest before climbing when a team of three people turned up. They all looked a little more mountaineery than us and Rachel and I agreed that it would be better if they went ahead. Rach andc I were in no rush and decided that we could do without thew hassle of someone on our tail, it'd be much nicer to just climb unrushed. So they set off and we relaxed in the... well it wasn't quite sunshine, but it wasn't raining. I guess we just relax in the atmosphere, praying it wouldn't rain. It was quite cool to watch the rain falling on Anglesey miles away. The wind was pulling it all along the coast so it didn't really touch the mountains. 
Then it was time to get a move on. Rachel took the first lead but we didn't actually follow the pitches in the guidebook and Rach lead off taking a line as and where she saw fit. She climbed really well in her normal style with is the chimney up everything. This isn't a disservice to her climbing ability but I recon in a former life she was definatly a mighty mountianeer with a great white hoarfrost encrusted beard who ploughed up VDiffs and Severes regardless of conditions. She climbs very traditionally. She climbed up to a small niche and belayed bringing me up. I then took the little groove above and belayed as soon as the difficulties had passed. My idea was that Rach would then lead off and she would have more time on the sharp end however when I brought her up, gave her the rack and she headed off it was about 10ft before she got to a massive ledge and yelled down to me she was safe. 
So I followed her up and took in a a bunch of coils as she scrambled up the next short section passing the sticking out rock thing. I think opted for a "russian belay" (don't know where I've picked that term up from but it is used to describe the pulling in of rope with a climber on the end, hand over hand) and brought me up. By now we'd caught up with the party who'd set off before us so we settled down and had some lunch. As we lunched the guy leading came up to a definate crux in the next pitch and seemed to agonise about the next few moves. This was the kind of move that would be described by a hard climber as "interesting" and a lesser (?) climber as well... bloody hard for VD. When he'd done the move and brought his seconds up, we set off hot on thier tail. Rach lead off first but took one look at the bloody hard/interesting move decided against it. I was sent up on the lead and soon delt with the crux but came up behind the party in front. Instead of standing around on the lead I belayed and brought up Rach in the mean time and she led off to top out.We had a nice relaxed walk off after deciding to bin the idea of climbing the Cneifon Arete, so headed down before any midges were about. We spent the day climbing as light as we could (although I still carried a massive rack) using a skinny single 60 metre rope and a bandolier. We actually managed to climb with only the 1 sack on, leaving the leader free to climb bagless.
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