Mountain routes, squeezes & hangovers

I got my car back for this weekend and the mechanic said I should take it out for a drive. I did check that he meant a 400 mile round trip to stoke, wales and chester so I was ok. It's still looking like I'll have to get a new car though.

My haul bag arrived in the mail as well last week. Why do I now own a haul bag? well I do plan on going big walling with as soon as I can get my act together and find a psyched partner. I also don't have a big kit bag to tab everything around in, I figured this'll do. When I brought it off UKC the guy didn't know how many litres it was and I couldn't tell from the photo. I now own a 140 litre (at a guess) haul bag. It'll talk all the kit I need and more, and I can sleep in it if I want to. It doesn't carry to bag either. I packed it up this weekend just because I could. I already love the damn thing.

And Toaf, Tim and I headed out to Wales this weekend. Like normal we aimed for an early start on the Saturday morning and didn't exactly make it. I think this probably had something to do with the large amounts of alcohol and worms armageddon we stayed up till 0530 playing. Having said all that we made it wo wales for about 1030 in the morning with aplan to head to Idwal.

Now I find it pretty hard to get inspired to go to go to Idwal most of the time. There are a few reason for this but I think that main one is that there are alot of low grade routes there. I'm not being elitist or arrogant but I don't really like getting stuck behind parties who are much slower, especially ones that have people learning to do multipitch climbs. I'm completely not against people learning here and moving at thier own pace, but I feel very rude over taking people or putting pressure on them by climbing behind them. I cut my teeth multipitch climbing here. I try to be very polite with al the people I meet there.

We did actually head straight to Idwal. Tim had a little challenge for us first... a squeeze. For anyone unfamilar to the term "squeeze" it's pretty much what it sounds like, a gap you have to squeeze through. I'm scared of the dark and not a fan of small spaces, and Tim knows this full well, I think he also knows how competitive I am when he suggested it. This particular boulder squeeze I awesome but definatly type 2 fun. I got to a point there I had to express all the air from my lungs, move upward a little and them breath in... only I couldn't re-expand my lungs. Needless to say I freaked out constantly and couldn't do it. But I'll be back.

Toaf the managed it without even touching the sides pretty much.

Squeeze over we geared up and walked in. It was pretty late, maybe 1200 buy the time we reached Idwal. I'd formulated a plan for the day to do Javelin Direct (E1 5b) and Continuation Crack (HVS 5b) which if you know Idwal start about half way up. As a started we took the line of Tennis shoe direct (HVS 4c) for the first 2 pitches to try and avoid the crowds. We pretty much didn't have any other choice of what line to take as every other seemed to be taken up by someone. I lead the first 2 pitches and used the guide plate to run Toaf and Tim up, then we took a direct line the large block and just moved together to get to the big ledge. I explained to Tim that the climbing was easy enough and we'd be fine on it and he was cool with it. At the ledge our speedy ascent (we'd over taken about more than one other team) was halted by someone on Javelin Buttress so we where forced to sit, wait and break into a measly supply of food we'd brought for the day. At least we where in position for out next climb.

Actually being able to have a break was awesome. We talked loudly, snoozed and sorted all our gear out for the next route. I'm pretty sure we gave the impression of 3 youths who where bumbling up idwal, rather quickly. Most of the people just laughed at our conversations but it seem like some of the "old boys" (normally sporting white beards, large rucksacks and full mountaineering kit, moving going slow & steady) who where there looked down on us with our fast & light approach and our happy attitude. This all changed when we started off on Javelin Blade as Toaf too up the mantle of belayer, we lightened my sack to have virtually nothing so I could lead with it and Tim moved to he could keep communication with me and Toaf (Toaf an I couldn't see each other).

Javelin Blade is a pretty awesome route. The Rhyolite up on the cliff above idwal isn't polished but sharp with great friction (and comsequently eats finger skin). The route takes the line of Javelin Buttress before breaking out left to a semi-hangin groove. This bit in itself is pretty runout and only once I was in the groove did I manage to sneak in a single wire. From here I puzzeled for ages about how to progress eventually settling on a semi-layback of the arete, to bridge the groove and then pull around the other arete of the groove. It was quite scary as your so high up at that point, with the rope running to only 1 visible piece of gear. The climbing eases quickly, which is good as there minimal gear (a bad spike) until you belay.

No guide plate for this route and I brought up Tim first who had no problems with the crux but was exstatic about the route. Tim actually smiled! Toaf won't mind me putting this but he messed it up and couldn't work out how to do it. Eventually he got it after struggling like mad and made it to the top! We had only one route to go now so we got striaght to it. It was Continuation Crack which is a pretty good slabby route. There is loads of gear on it, but the start is pretty hard with some decking potential unless you've got a good belayer. Plus there is an awesome little thread to take adventage to protect the crux.

Needless to say that Tim and Toaf loved this route. They thought it was the best pitch of the day but I didn't. I felt that the exposed and runout Javelin Direct was, probably because it was a route I've been wanting to do for ages. I now need to find another route to get a buzz for at Idwal... maybe Homocide wall (E3 5b)?

Being honest we probably could have carried on climbing at this point and done another HVS on Glyer fawr's cliff but the drive just wasn't there. With the hangovers, lack of food & sleep we figured we should just bug out while we where feeling fresh and get some food... then maybe an evenings slate climbing or bouldering in. As it happened we sat by Padarn lake, skimming rocks and eating fish and chips before some bouldering at the Cromlech Boulders. I spotted and shot photos for them. I'll put the best of them up on another bouldering photo-essay. We bouldered till late evening whilst scoping out bivi spots before descending on the pub. I thought we'd be in for a long evening of drinking but that wasn't to be the case. We flaked pretty much after the first pint, me especially, so headed up to our boulder for the night...