A lot of Firsts on this trip! Llanberis and now Gogarth! We woke up to beautiful weather. The blues were incredibly blue, deep and light all at the same time. 

We had decided to have a leisurely breakfast at 9 in the RSPB cafe. imagine our surprise when we wandered over at 9 to find it didn't open till 10! Sarah uttered some fateful words "Shall we do a route before breakfast?". 

We decided to do a route.

With no experience of climbing at Gogarth I let Sarah choose the route. She suggested Rap VS 4c as it finished at the abeseil point. The VS grade scared me a little but I was determined to give it a go. 

Sarah racked up her gear while I rigged the abseil. Then it was time to take off our shoes and Sarah disappeared over the edge. 

She was soon down and I clipped onto the rope and followed her down. By the time I had reached her (it is a long abseil) she had rigged the belay so I clipped in and we started sorting the ropes.

Ropes done Sarah led off. She made the climbing look effortless and I was ever to get on it. After a slight struggle in the middle of the pitch she reached the belay and brought me up. It was impressively good holds. I finally understood why climbing walls are the way they are! 

I decided to have a go at the second pitch. It was fun climbing. Great holds, brilliant gear and just enough exposure. I really can't do it justice. 

I finished up the second pitch and brought Sarah back up to the abseil point. It was about 1pm and the tide was on its way back in. If we wanted another route on Gogath it would have to be before breakfast, again!

We abseiled back down and this time Sarah led off up the first pitch of Lighthouse Arete (VS 4c), intact she ran pitches one and two together to speed up the climbing. 

I quickly followed her up and met her at the belay. I realised that I now had to do the crux of the route. A powerful overhung move. This worried me but it had bomber gear so up I went. After the initial moves it was a pleasant pitch. I ran pitch three and four together and found myself back at the abseil point. Superb climbing. 

It was now 3pm so we decided that it was probably time for breakfast. Unfortunately for us the Caffe disagreed. In fact by the time we got there eat 3:15pm it had finished serving any form of food, other than coffee and cake. So it was a van lunch. Over lunch I was talked into one final climb in the Pass on my way to Purbeck for work the next day. I was easily persuaded, 

We were led up a gloriously positive climb in the Pass (Wind HVS 5b), I was very glad I didn't have to lead it. I finally reached the van at 6pm, after a glorious day, ready for a long nights drive to Dorset (I finally arrived at 3am)

Totally Worth It! 

Cheers Sarah for a great couple of days.

Last Thursday (19th) I woke up in Telford. I had arrived late the night before and only stopped there as I was on route to Capel Curig and too tired to continue. After coffee I got back in the van and drove off. 

I arrived in Capel and stopped in the Moel Siabod caffe and awaited the arrival of Sarah B, my climbing partner for the next few days. The food here is really rather good! Sarah turned up and we discussed a plan. I, shame fadedly, admitted that I had never climbed in Penny Pass (a Mecca of North Welsh Climbing). So it was decided that we should head there. 

So off we headed. It was mid afternoon by this point and we elected to climb in the sun on the East side of the Pass. Carrefour Wastad proved the ideal spot. A short walk from the road and gloriously lit up by the afternoon sun.

Sarah suggested that we have a go at Crackstone Rib (S 4a) and off we went. It was simply glorious climbing. I was convinced to take the first pitch. I was glad I did, the Sever proved to be a good introduction to climbing in the Pass. 

I was simply staggered at how positive the holds were. a complete revolution compared the the brutal finger cracks of Peak gristone. 

Sarah led the second pitch and we finished up on the top and headed back down for a second route.

I was psyked and easily convinced to push my grade. Skylon (HS) was our next route. This time I let Sarah have the first lead which she did magnificently. I followed up wishing that I had been selfish and asked to lead. The second pitch was a scrambley indistinct pitch, but fun non the less. 

The wind had changed direction and a cold breeze was now blowing across the crag. We called it an evening. it was now nearly 7pm. After a brief linger enjoying the view we headed off to the Gally y Glynt for the famous Pizza and Pint deal. Another worth while hang out in the evening. They also have cool table cloths. 

Unfortunately the England game kicked off while we were enjoying dinner. So we ran away to Holyhead. The sun was just sinking and setting as we arrived on Holyhead and boy was it spectacular. Just stunning. A good Omen for the day ahead we thought. We were right, but more of that in the next post. Watch this space.

By now Will and I were a little bit weary of the Ogwen Valley. I had been out of contact with civilisation for several days and was getting Facebook withdrawal symptoms, I was relaxed, chilled out, and thoroughly enjoying not seeing what everyone was moaning about. 

Moving swiftly on. 

So we got up and paid a visit to Eric's Cafe. This is another climbing haunt run by the legendary Eric Jones! He sold us a definitive guide book to the area, which gave us lots to think about. The we decided to stick to the original plan.

Hail Beeb - This classic line was a beauty to climb, the belays are all massive trees which makes a pleasant change from building belays with rock gear. Nothing makes you feel more secure than tying yourself to a massive tree (see below). 

After Hail Beeb we abseiled down and made our way back to the van for elevenses. An important part in Tremadog climbing is the ability to drink lots of tea and eat cake. So after coffee and Jamaica cake we thought that we should probably do some more climbing. 

We headed over to climb Oberon - A fuller report on this climb can be seen in my September blog posts so I wont go into detail here. In the interests of fullness I should say that Will lead the first and last pitch while I lead the awkward overhanging, thrutchy chimney, its a very interesting chimney. Full respects go out to Jess Bradshaw who led the pitch back in September when we climbed it then. 

Finally we headed over to Sheer Khan Right Hand, as you will all know having read all my blog posts Jess and I also did this climb back in September. This time however I climbed the first pitch. a superb pitch up to a muddy belay. Will headed up the second pitch, but didn't fancy the awkward step on the traverse, so headed up the second pitch of Smarter than the average bear - Technically a harder climb, but traverses mess with peoples heads. 

As we got to the top it started to rain, which helped make the decision as to what to do next. The obvious answer was to call it a day on climbing and go eat cake and drink tea in Eric's. So thats what we did. 

All round a cracking weekends climbing. Thanks to Will Killiner for coming along and climbing with me.

After the successes of yesterday out on the slabs will and I decided that there was simply too much good climbing in the Ogwen valley to bother traveling anywhere else. We kipped the night in the valley and were up good and early to get on the climbs before the rest of the bank holiday traffic turned up.

Having done all the climbs that we wanted to do on Idwal we decided to hit up some of the smaller crags in the valley. The idea was to do lots of shorter multi-pitch climbs. (multi-pitch climbs are climbs that require more than one rope length to get to the top). 

We headed over to Milestone Buttress on Tryfan. We climbed;
Direct route - this cheeky but fun climb was a superb start to the day, it had one interesting pitch which required a delicate traverse and then a step over a cave to another slab. it was gripping stuff. The final pitch was a polished chimney that required the climber to "thrutch" their way up (basically stick half your body into the chimney and brutally wriggle your way up). After that we nipped back down and climbed up
Sopgut with Chimney finish - This was very interesting climbing. after an initial corner climb, by Will, to a small ledge belay I took the lead up the second pitch.  I have to confess that I was placing gear left right and centre and when I reached the top of the crack and it opened out to a large grassy chimney I decided to build a belay and bring Will up to finish up the last pitch to the top.

After this thrilling climbing we headed back to the car for a spot of lunch. We relaxed in the van for a while before deciding that we should probably do some more climbing. So we headed back to Idwal cottage and over to Clogwyn Y Tarw and had a pop up;
ZigZag - we ended up doing this climb in 4 pitches. This unorthodox method meant that I led the first thrutchy chimney then belayed on a rather polished sloping ledge. Will then led the second thrutchy chimney, a very short pitch, to the large sloping quartz ledge above and a much better belay stance. I then led the next thrutchy chimney which was an exciting pitch, I belayed on a massive spike above so that I could get some good pictures of Will committing to the thrutch. Will then nipped up the last few slabby sections to the top. A really fun little climb. 

We got back to the bottom of the crag before deciding that we where pretty tired and that the climbs wold be there another day. So we bumbled down to the vans and headed off to Tremadog to get ready for another days climbing. 

Im back! Once again I'm back in a National Park having fun and Adventures.

So where am I? Well on friday I was in the Snowdoina National Park, fighting for parking spaces with tourists and ex lectures. Yes once again I bumped into a lecturer near a mountain! 

I met Will just before lunch time on a gloriously sunny bank holiday friday. We threw climbing gear in our bags and headed up to Idwal Slabs to see which classic routes we could get on. 

Here is the run down;

Faith - we did the first pitch before catching up with the party in front, so we moved across on to 
Sub Wall Climb - witch we followed up to the end of the slab. we then linked it to
Lazarus - this cheeky little climb led us on to the final tier of climbing and to 
Grove above - which I had the pleasure of climbing. 

After this rather long excursion we decided to head back to the bottom of the slab, which is possibly harder than climbing up it. and then hit up another climb. this time we did;

Tennis shoe, the other direct start - this cheeky little excursion up the side of the slab proved simply superb climbing. It gets its classic status due to just nice climbing. 

The real beauty of living in the Ogwen Valley for a few days is the complete lack of phone signal. If you were in contact with me on Friday I was part way up a mountain. ;) 

We woke today to a glimmer of blue sky over Snowdonia so after a breakfast of toast and lots of tea we jumped in the car and headed to Tremadog. This was my first time to this legendary climbing venue!

We parked up at Eric's Caffe and happily paid the £1 parking fee. A pleasant change from the £4 in National Park car parks. Being so close to the climbs we decided to chuck everything in one bag and headed straight out

After a short walk along the road we dived into the undergrowth that shrouds Bwlch y Moch from view and fought our way along the bottom of the crag until we reached our first climb Boo Boo (Vdiff). This 2 pitch Vdiff was a nice reintroduction to trad climbing for me. 

Despite performance nerves I offered to climb the first pitch. which involved hugging a tree and clambering round it. Before belaying just above and to one side of it.

Jess swiftly followed me up before starting up the second pitch in her usual speedy way. What seamed like mere moments later the ropes pulled tight between us and I shot up a beautiful slab after her. Upon reaching the top we rigged a short abseil and we were soon back at the foot of the crag. We then retreated to Eric's for a bite of lunch.

After lunch we headed back out for our second route of the day. Oberion, S. I headed up the first pitch, a beautiful but nervey slab climb towards a tree belay above. Jess joined me and then headed up the second pitch, a terrifying overhanging chimney! I breathed a sigh of relief that Jess rather than I had that bit of technical climbing to do. She did it spectacularly and made it to the second belay speedily. Finally I let up the final pitch towards a steep but pleasant crack (shown above). 

After abseiling 51m back to the bottom we had an hour long epic retrieving the rope which had got stuck.

All in all a cracking day on the crag. Topped off by a shattering session at the Beacon climbing wall.

Its a pity that tomorrow looks like its going to be wet again. Oh well looks like it will be a wet mountain day.