This weekend saw a very welcome but long awaited return of sunshine to North Wales. This coincided with a visit from Amy, we managed two great days out bouldering.
On Saturday after a leisurely brunch we nipped down to Criccieth for a little play on the traverse under the castle. I love this traverse, starts off very easy then gets gradually harder culminating in a strenuous sequence of moves to cross an overhanging section which would merit V5 on it's own. I think the whole traverse (about 50m of it!) is probably worth a sport grade of 7b+, it's a real pump fest!
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| Amy near the beginning |
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| First tricky section |
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| Roof crux towards the end of the traverse |
The rock is great and continually interesting, often unhelpfully rounded. The wall is a fast drying sun trap however it does get dripped on from above after prolonged rain.
The seaside location has got a very holiday feel to it, top quality ice cream and coffee are only a 5min walk away, nice. Often the weather in Criccieth is a good deal better than in the mountains and it's quite a bit closer than Porth Ysgo.