Quartz Staircase...

A couple of months ago I gave a 2 friends and climbing partners a very quick intro into dealing with loose rock. We climbed a route that had a massive loose flake on it but along as you pulled down it wasn't a problem. It scared them both half to death (the flake was a man-squisher) but it also taught them both a valuable lesson. Loose rock is a part of climbing. Yes I know a lot of people might never encounter loose rock climbing (especially if they spend their time climbing at nice neat little gritstone edges 10 minutes from the road) but if you climb on mountain routes, limestone, sea cliffs or in winter (or on the Lleyn Peninsular) then you'll be bound to encounter something loose once in a while.

My climbing over the last year seems to have had an awful lot of loose rock in it, and there's been many moments when I've been praying not that I won't blow the move, more that the hold won't blow off.

So with all this in mind Me and Rach, on a short trip to wales and in an effort to find some good weather, found in Pete's Eat's new routes book "the best diff ever". It was on a sea-cliff at Rhoscolyn and therefore we couldn't not do it.

 

The weather was awesome when we arrived at Rhoscolyn, sunny, dry and with a strong onshore breeze. What made it even better was that when we looked back towards land the mountains were shrouded in cloud and rain. We walked in quickly and then found out that getting to the base of the route would probably be the crux. The onshore wind was providing a great swell that stopped an clambering in and sea-level traversing to the base of the route. Instead much wandering along the top of the crag led me to find a nice slab that allowed us to abseil in. 

The route itself was quite clear (both from the top and base of the crag) but what my view from the top didn't tell me was quite how steep it was. The angle of the line was awkward to say the least. That didn't stop us and I set of anyway. The route itself was pretty good going. Like most lower grade routes (Diff and VD) there wasn't actually that much gear compared to the nature of the route. It's also a second ascent on a sea-cliff and you'll know what that means... loose rock. This will be an awesome route when it's been done about 10/15 times. It'll go really well with Bagger's and Symphony Crack that are in the same area but at the moment it's a little chossy. Having said that the route was still awesome with a definite crux at the top (pulling up on a loose block). Both me and Rach removed as much loose crap as we could within the realms of "cleaning" rather than just destroying the route.

I don't know about best diff ever, but this one is defiantly going to be hard to beat at the grade!