I’ve been out with Gordon the last 3 days. We first met last winter when we did Ledge Route on Ben Nevis. Since then Gordon has got the bit between his teeth and now has various alpine aspirations - in europe and possibly also in New Zealand. These 3 days were aimed at improving his ability to climb in big boots with a rucsac – a very necessary skill for alpine climbing.
Spectacularly wet and greasy rock meant we did not quite push the grades that he had hoped for but in terms of developing delicate footwork in adverse conditions it was ideal. In the 3 days we climbed scrambles and easy rock climbs on the Idwal Slabs, the Gribin Facet, East Face of Tryfan and the Milestone Buttress.
On the last day the sun even came out and it was a surprise just how few people seemed to be out enjoying the great late autumn conditions.
This weekend I was running a 2 day learn to lead course for Marylebone Mountaineering Club. I was working for James Thacker. Saturday saw us at Burbage and once the early low cloud had evaporated we were blessed with some pleasant autumnal sunshine. The team were already comptetant seconds with quite a lot of climbing experience so it was more a question of going over what they already did, instilling best practice, and lots of hands on experience at placing natural pro. The team then used these skills to set their own anchors and top rope a number of routes. We also spent a while developing our slab technique smearing our way up many of the boulders that lie at the foot of the crag.
Unfortunately Sunday dawned to torrential rain however James had an ace up his sleeve! As a full member of the Edale Mountain Rescue team he managed to secure us the use of their training facility in Hope. Their we looked at abseiling with a back up. Prussicking up a rope and rigging for retrievable and non-retrievable abseils. By then the sun had come out so we dashed to Lawrencefield where the team put all the skills from the weekend to practice in a couple of leads before darkness prevailed.
Steep fun climbing with well placed bolts, warm seas, hot sunshine, delicious sea-food, and great company. No its not North Wales in the Autumn unfortunately but the Greek island of Kalymnos.
When I went at the same time of year 8 years ago, climbers were only just discovering the place. There was no guide-book, most of the bars and restaurants were closed and we saw only a handful of other climbers. How times change. Climbing has re-invigorated the small village of Masouri after the death of the sponge diving industry. The bars are all busy with climbers literally from all over the world and in my short visit I met friends from Sheffield, Glasgow, Bristol and Chamonix. There is a really friendly vibe and it seemed every night when you went out for food you either met old friends you did not know were on the island or you made new ones. A lot of the climbing can be accessed by walking from Masouri while the rest only requires a short fun scooter ride. It might not be the cheapest sport climbing holiday (though maybe thats got something to do with the number of cocktails we drank!) but for variety of easily accessible rock at all grades and fantastic cheap food its got to be one of the best.
The sun looks like it is going to continue to shine all next week and I have availability Monday through Friday. It could be the perfect time for some sea-cliff adventures, valley cragging or mountain scrambling.
Whatever you fancy get in touch and we’ll make it happen
Keith at the top of the Moon, Yellow Wall, Gogarth
It may be the middle of Autumn but there is still T-shirt clad adventure climbing to be had in the UK. Mat, Keith, Dave, Owen and I drove out to Gogarth today and were in for a pleasant surprise. The cliffs of Yellow Wall and Castle Helen catch the sun all day and if anything it was almost unpleasantly warm climbing in just T-shirts. Certainly my feet swelled sufficiently in the heat to make my comfy shoes quite painful. The only major downer on the day was that south stack cafe was shut meaning no ice creams between routes! Bummer!
There were a few other climbers around but there were no tourists, the sea birds have all gone and we finished the day as the evening sun turned the whole crag a golden yellow colour. Does it get much better than this?
Owen just after the crux of Kalahari, Castle Helen, Gogarth.
Over the weekend I was working on a Trouble Shooting course for Plas y Brenin . The aim of this course was to give folks who are already independant climbers some skills that may help them get out of tricky situations that can present themselves if things do not go quite to plan. Since prevention is always better than cure we also looked at their existing systems to try and tidy things up so hopefully things are less likely to go wrong in the first place.
By the end of the weekend everyone was pretty happy with escaping the system, arranging simple assisted and un-assisted hoists, prussicing and abseiling and lowering past knots in the rope.
It’s August, the bird bans are lifted so its time to gird your loins and venture onto the more adventurous parts of Gogarth. Nick persuaded me down to the Red Walls at Gogarth. Many folk who have not been there wrongly believe the whole of Gogarth is loose. In fact very little of it is loose though some crags are definately “soft” and Red Walls is definately one of those. The rock has a brittle red patina and where it has been weathered the underlying rock is little more than sand. This results in some very unusual rock formations which requires careful handling and some ingenuity with some of the runner placements – take a big rack and lots of slings!
We had time to climb both Fantasia and Wendigo before the strong wind started to drive us mad and we left in search of shelter.
Rachel was back for the third time this year (I think she has fully got the climbing bug!) and psyched to get on the sharp end. After the soaking we had on the last course we were blessed with some dry sunny weather. Saturday saw us at Tremadog where Rachel confidently led Poor Man’s Peuterey and Oberon in fine style.
Sunday saw us head to the Ogwen Valley and Bochlwyd Buttress. This small crag only 10 minutes from Ogwen Cottage has a number of good lower grade routes. Compared to most of the other easy routes on crags in Ogwen they are notably steeper and require a more positive approach from the leader. You are often forced to place gear in more strenuous situations and sometimes even make the decision that it is better to press on and reach easier ground first. The classic leaders dilemma. Rachel rose to the challenge brilliantly and led two severes, the unimaginatively named “5 pitch route” and “2 pitch route”. She rounded the weekend off by seconding the crag classic Bochlwyd Eliminate, HVS.
The mountains of North Wales have been full of colour recently. The sunshine and heavy showers seems to have made the summer flowers even more colourful and abundant. Here are just a few of the plants to found amongst the grass, rock and bog if you open your eyes to look for them.
Sundew - an insectivorous plant
Stone crop - a succulent to be found in rocky areas
Just back from 3 fun days in Pembroke. It was not all sunshine like in the photos we also had plenty of rain and heavy showers. Monday evening was glorious and we had the crags to ourselves however it rained all night and did not stop till midday tuesday. In a rush to beat the incoming tide we made a hasty abseil at Trevellan. I just managed to leave the ground seconding the first pitch of Dinkum wall before the first waves crashed over where I had been belaying. By the time we had finished the route the incoming crashing sea had also claimed the end of our ab line and wrapped it around some boulders in the surf. Retrieval required a return to the crag at 10pm with an outgoing tide and a headtorch abseil descent followed by some wave dodging and a steep free hanging jumar back out once the line had been freed. Well it would not be a trip to pembroke without a bit of adventure would it?!
On these pages we hope to keep you informed of what we have been up to recently. Over the winter months we will try and upload pictures and movies regularly. We hope that these along with the written reports on the weather and climbing conditions will help keep you informed on the current situation.
Climb-Mountains offers personalised instruction and private guiding in all aspects of Rock Climbing, Scrambling, Navigation & Winter Mountaineering.
Steep fun climbing with well placed bolts, warm seas, hot sunshine, delicious sea-food, and great company. No its not North Wales in the Autumn unfortunately but the Greek island of Kalymnos.
Just back from 3 fun days in Pembroke. It was not all sunshine like in the photos we also had plenty of rain and heavy showers. Monday evening was glorious and we had the crags to ourselves however it rained all night and did not stop till midday tuesday. In a rush to beat the incoming tide we made a hasty abseil at Trevellan. I just managed to leave the ground seconding the first pitch of Dinkum wall before the first waves crashed over where I had been belaying. By the time we had finished the route the incoming crashing sea had also claimed the end of our ab line and wrapped it around some boulders in the surf. Retrieval required a return to the crag at 10pm with an outgoing tide and a headtorch abseil descent followed by some wave dodging and a steep free hanging jumar back out once the line had been freed. Well it would not be a trip to pembroke without a bit of adventure would it?!
