Exploring more of wales... (26th - 27th June)

... or trying too. Good weather, so back in wales with Rach and Andy. We ended up at Dinas Mot's Western flank on the saturday as part of my quest to find new cliffs each weekend. The plan was to do [route name] on the west face but as we arrived Rach was quite ill and there was already a part on route. Instead we took Western Rib (HVS 5a) that runs up the side of the nose.

Today I was sporting a very fine pair of black spandex trousers. Yes, worryingly enough they were skin tight, and no they do not improve your climibng ability. However I thought in my head that I looked very cool and they where the best things I've ever climbed in, I think. I figure that you can get away with skin tight lyrca only if it is in garish colours and your on something hard, therefore people will think your mad anyway. I was actually told I was very brave for wearing them, but to soldiers from yorkshire!

Andy took thie first pitch, which I'm pretty sure we started wrong as it quite hard for 4c. Then again maybe we're just a bit crap. He seemed to be having quite a hard time moving his hands around a loose block (which also appeared to have all his gear behind and be the handhold) till he could mantle off to the left. He yelled the climbing was easier and shot up to a belay. I say "a" belay, and not the belay because the actual belay was beneath him by 5 ft. I'm not into slagging people off on my blog, but it meant the second pitch was quite a bit more serious for me.

Western Rib, as the name suggests takes the rib that you move out onto. You'd be amazed how often I miss something like that and not click that because rib is in the name, it'll include a rib in the climb. It was this rib that took the 5a pitch. Because of the belay I had to down climb, traverse across and then set off up without any protection in until I got level with the belay to try and limit rope drag. The pitch was pretty awesome either way, and the gear was alright but I didn't really place too much. It sort of eased up as I got closer to the next belay. I arrived after clipping nothing but one of my half ropes to protect the traverse for Andy, slammed in my guide plate and yelled to climb.

He seconded it fine, and we checked the guidebook for the last pitch. This wondered around the corner out of my view before taking a crack system full of loose flakes. Andy dissappeared from view for quite a while. Then he came back and went up the final pitch of Western Slabs, and then came down back to the belay. I tied on the sharp end and headed on up (promising not to do the final pitch of The Chain, which looked immense a 5b finger crack) and went round the corner, found the crack with loose flakes, jammed, layed and squirmed my way up, trying not to to pull or stand on anything too much then mantled of it and ran up the slab to finish. Andy admitted later that he'd actually found the crack, but thought "bugger leading that" on account of the flakes.

It's 2 rappells to get down, we found out. And I almost got the rope jammed! Still it's a really good route, I just want to get back and do the Chain now!

The west flank of the nose on Dinas mot isn't exactly a new crag, but Carreg Wasted is which is where we headed. Simply it was cold at Dinas Mot. At Wasted we aimed to do Ribstone Crack, but I knew Andy wanted to do Crackstone Rib (S) so off I set up this instead. Before I knew it I'd done the traverse with some incredible rope drag. Literally I was pulling a few feet of rope though and then climbing up, then repeating this.

Andy took the final pitch, all 10 metre's of it, but it was a classic route and good fun in the sweltering heat. We bugged out as the heat seemed against us and headed for the beach, which was closed! Instead we camped up at Eric's Cafe and had a little campfire to keep the midges at bay.

We settled for a lazy day in the Moelwyn's for sunday, and lazy it was. We climbed on Craig Y Clipau doing to classic White streak/ Honeysuckle Corner (HS 4a) route. I took the first pitch on the slab, knowing that even though the climbing is easy, it is on pretty small gear. Andy did the 2nd pitch in good style for such a hard corner.

I didn't realise how much I love climbing here, nestled away from the crowds in a quiet corner of wales. As you climb over the top and descend into the abandoned quarry you have to walk through a tunnel along an incline to get back down (best walk off ever!) but there is a whole quarry to explore. I'm planning on getting a serious head torch so I can go exploring some of these mines. I had a quick look into one of the tunnel entrances but disturbed a family of choughs which then started squarking like mad. Being alone up in the quarry at the time made it a pretty creepy place to be.

About now our drive to climb had pretty much died. Instead we sat around and watched a heather fire develop until we realised it wasn't a controlled burn and called the firebrigade. This was very exciting to watch from our high point as one firefighter seemed to take out over half the blaze on his own. It was an interesting end to a weekend where I'd planned to search out more new crags for me. I've found some hard looking single pitch routes in the quarry above Clipau which I'll be heading back to, if only because it's a very atmospheric place!