Supermassive Blackhole

Yesterday Calum and I made the second ascent of a new multipitch slate sport route called Supermassive Black Hole in Twll Mawr put up by local slate activist Ian Lloyd-Jones. See news article.

Twll Mawr is quite an intimidating place with lots of hard and serious routes. I'm sure this route will become very popular as it allows the Twll Mawr experience atmosphere to be enjoyed in the safety of 35 bolts!

More importantly it is also an excellent route, with four pitches of absorbing but never desperate climbing. Calum and I climbed the route in two long pitches. The pitch grades given were 7a, 6b+, 7a/6c+/6b. Calum and I though they were more like 6c,6b+,6c,6b although each pitch looks many times harder than it actually is. Big jugs seem to appear from nowhere!

The best way to access the route is probably by walking through the tunnel from the Golgotha Slab (level below Monkey Bar area) into the bottom of Twll Mawr. The route can be seen going up the wall just to the left of the left hand tunnel. To access the base of the route take the right hand tunnel then scramble round and down the scree. The base of the route can also be reached by abseil.

Calum just about to do the crux on P1
Me on the awesome P3

Twll Mawr Atmosphere

Tunnel into Twll Mawr