Slate Dry Tooling

Winter has arrived!...well temporarily for the first half of the bank holiday weekend in North Wales. Cold northerly winds and showers made the slate quarry's feel pretty grim and wintry on Saturday. I went along with Ritch Simpson to check out the manufactured dry tooling route Ibex which is in the Monkey Bar area of Never Never land in the slate quarry's.





The route is graded M8, which is not particularly easy. The main difficulty was finding the drilled holes used for axe hooks and mono point crampon foot placement. Having not done any dry tooling before I found it desperate, don't think I have ever been so pumped! It was quite an experience. Bring on the winter!