Climbing with Soames generally means I'll be climbing somewhere in North Wales, even if you've only actually got the one day to go climbing. But this is all good with me. If I could only climb in North Wales for the rest of my life, I still wouldn't get bored.
Our hatched plan was to decided on the move, so I just turned up with a stack of guidebooks and we drove off already putting off the inevitable decision about where to actually climb. The weather helped us make a decision as it was raining in the mountains... and you know what that means. That's right we ended up at the coast to clear skies and chill in the air. I was pretty annoyed on the walk in to main cliff as, yet again, I'd forgotten my camera!
We decided to go for a 2 star HVS 5a called Gauntlet. The short path down to main cliff was fine, but the vegetation was still soaked (as the sun had yet to move round) leaving us both with soaking wet rock boots to start the climb. I got to lead Pitch 1 (5a) which I found to be challenging but good. The climbing really was excellent. It followed and corner and groove system up until the belay. There was some excellent jamming and finger locks in the crack on the way up. I hardly had to actually pull on my arms at all. That said there was a lot of pushing off my arms and high stepping instead.
Annoyingly the belay was a hanging belay, with only 1 foothold to actually stand on. For the first 5 minutes it was alright but 30 minutes later the seemingly constant bruise that runs arcoss my back (from spending too much time in a harness) had flared up again. Still, suffering is fun, right?
Our hatched plan was to decided on the move, so I just turned up with a stack of guidebooks and we drove off already putting off the inevitable decision about where to actually climb. The weather helped us make a decision as it was raining in the mountains... and you know what that means. That's right we ended up at the coast to clear skies and chill in the air. I was pretty annoyed on the walk in to main cliff as, yet again, I'd forgotten my camera!
We decided to go for a 2 star HVS 5a called Gauntlet. The short path down to main cliff was fine, but the vegetation was still soaked (as the sun had yet to move round) leaving us both with soaking wet rock boots to start the climb. I got to lead Pitch 1 (5a) which I found to be challenging but good. The climbing really was excellent. It followed and corner and groove system up until the belay. There was some excellent jamming and finger locks in the crack on the way up. I hardly had to actually pull on my arms at all. That said there was a lot of pushing off my arms and high stepping instead.
Annoyingly the belay was a hanging belay, with only 1 foothold to actually stand on. For the first 5 minutes it was alright but 30 minutes later the seemingly constant bruise that runs arcoss my back (from spending too much time in a harness) had flared up again. Still, suffering is fun, right?
Soames lead pitch 2 (4c) which from below looked again excellent and reasonably easy. It was not the case, well no wholly anyway. It was excellent, but it wasn't easy. I had more trouble seconding it that I did leading the first pitch (I think this might have more to do with the a possible disparity between how hard you find things depending on whether your on the sharp end or not, but more about that another time). Sadly this pitch although about 4 metres long only contained about 15 metres of rock climbing and 35 metres of gently making upward progress amongs loose rock, grass and mud. A normal top-out at Main Cliff really.
As we'd left lunch in the car we walked back from main cliff and started out drive home, with the intention of finding something to do in Llanberis Pass on the way. It took us a while to decide was to get on partly because there are few routes in my grade that Soames hasn't already done and partly because there was so much to choose from. We settled on a route called Cornix that claimed to be HVS 4c. It was put in '53 by Hugh Banner, apparently known for stiffly grading his routes. We were not disappointed.
As we'd left lunch in the car we walked back from main cliff and started out drive home, with the intention of finding something to do in Llanberis Pass on the way. It took us a while to decide was to get on partly because there are few routes in my grade that Soames hasn't already done and partly because there was so much to choose from. We settled on a route called Cornix that claimed to be HVS 4c. It was put in '53 by Hugh Banner, apparently known for stiffly grading his routes. We were not disappointed.
This time Soames jumped on the lead but was back down soon after. There was something about the route that just seemed to get under his skin. It was quite unnerving as it's very rare that I've ever seen Soames have a bad day like that. He untied and offer me the lead, which I accepted and off I set. The climbing was again excellent, the rock however was not. This was not a bad thing in the slightest. It vastly increased the level of acceptable risk and completely changed how I climbed the route.
I lead all three pitches on this route, whilst digging deeper and deeper into my own mind trying to understand why I hadn't bailed off it. Pitch 1 was not 4b, well at least it wasn't in my mind. Maybe if I'd been brave enough to actually weight some of the loose holds it would have bee 4b. I was relieved to actually top out on that pitch, after I'd removed a load of loose rock and nearly killed 2 sheep in the process (apparently sheep don't recognize "below!").
Pitch 2 promised to be better (good climbing and little loose rock) in the guide, however this wasn't so. The climbing was better, though harder than stated in the guide (more like 5a than 4c) but the amount of loose rock was about the same as the first pitch! I remember finding a horrible loose flake and slowly realizing that I'd have to actually weight it to make the next move, above a very shallow spike runner. This was quickly followed by a series of mantle shelves and yet another host of loose rock being clear off. At least the belay was nice, nestled in the shade of a few trees.
And pitch 3? well after pitches one and 2 I wasn't expecting it to be 4a and this was confirmed as I stood half way up, on a wet foothold I'd cleaned of moss with my other foot heel hooking a shallow flake to keep me on the wall. It certainly wasn't 4a climbing but that didn't stop it being excellent. I topped out and shouted I was safe, happy in the knowledge that I only had to walk off now.
On the descent I noticed that the large wall round to the side doesn't appear to have any lines on it, so maybe there's some new routing potential there? It was a great day and nice to be out climbing trad instead of clipping bolts.
I lead all three pitches on this route, whilst digging deeper and deeper into my own mind trying to understand why I hadn't bailed off it. Pitch 1 was not 4b, well at least it wasn't in my mind. Maybe if I'd been brave enough to actually weight some of the loose holds it would have bee 4b. I was relieved to actually top out on that pitch, after I'd removed a load of loose rock and nearly killed 2 sheep in the process (apparently sheep don't recognize "below!").
Pitch 2 promised to be better (good climbing and little loose rock) in the guide, however this wasn't so. The climbing was better, though harder than stated in the guide (more like 5a than 4c) but the amount of loose rock was about the same as the first pitch! I remember finding a horrible loose flake and slowly realizing that I'd have to actually weight it to make the next move, above a very shallow spike runner. This was quickly followed by a series of mantle shelves and yet another host of loose rock being clear off. At least the belay was nice, nestled in the shade of a few trees.
And pitch 3? well after pitches one and 2 I wasn't expecting it to be 4a and this was confirmed as I stood half way up, on a wet foothold I'd cleaned of moss with my other foot heel hooking a shallow flake to keep me on the wall. It certainly wasn't 4a climbing but that didn't stop it being excellent. I topped out and shouted I was safe, happy in the knowledge that I only had to walk off now.
On the descent I noticed that the large wall round to the side doesn't appear to have any lines on it, so maybe there's some new routing potential there? It was a great day and nice to be out climbing trad instead of clipping bolts.
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