Indian Summer

After weeks of near continuous rain the sun last week and last weekend was amazing. Temperatures hit close to 30 degrees. I got out as much as I could to enjoy what will probably be the last proper sun of the summer.

Highlights include swimming in the sea and cooking chorizo and red wine paella in the van on Black Rock beach.

Enjoying October sun in the van on Black Rock Beach 

Llyn Dinas in morning sun 

Climbing Black Hole Sun in Twll Mawr. It really lived up to its name, we chased the morning sun up the wall. This is a great new multi-pitch sport route. There are three pitches, I thought the grades were about 7a+, 6c and 6c. The first pitch has one amazing and pretty wild move, which basically involves falling off to the right and catching a ledge! The top pitch has got some stunning arete moves.  Many thanks must go to Ian Lloyd-Jones and Sion McGuiness for taking to time to clean and bolt the route. In the last few days they have been at it again, they've have put up another awesome looking route in Twll Mawr which is one of the longest sport routes in the UK. Can't wait to give it a go, looks like it will be quite a challenge: http://news.v12outdoor.com/2011/10/04/the-rock-bottom-line-5-pitch-f7bc-in-twll-mawr/. Shame it didn't quite make it into the new slate guide book. I bought a copy yesterday, it looks absolutely amazing! 

On Friday I made my first visit to Clogwyn yr Eryr in the Crafnant valley. I was totally below away by the steepness of the crag, quality of the climbing and atmosphere of the valley. We climbed Phoenix E2 5c (probably E3) and Snowdrop E4 6a. The final headwall on Snowdrop was amazing, one of the best routes at its grade in the area.

Crafnant Valley

Wild steepness of Clogwyn yr Eryr

Will seconding P1 of Phoenix  

Will approaching the crux on the immaculate headwall on P2 of Snowdrop 

Last Sunday Lukasz Warzecha was running a climbing photography workshop with Dave MacLeod in North Wales. They were in need of a belayer, I went along with PYB Center Assistant Will Oats. Dave climbed a couple of routes on Scimitar Ridge while the workshop participants snapped away. See Lukasz blog to see a few of the great photos that were taken over the weekend: http://blog.lwimages.co.uk/2011/10/03/autumn-photography-workshops-%E2%80%93-shoot-with-dave-macleod/

Will belaying Dave MacLeod warming up on Chreon - photo taken on my lowly compact! 

I ended up seconding Dave up King Wad, since I had done it before and Will wanted to save the onsight! It was great to to meet Dave, for someone operating at such a high level it was refreshing to see that he was pretty laid back and easy to chat to. Sounds like he's got some exciting TV projects in the pipeline...