With Indian Summer weather upon us in North Wales I've been trying to get out climbing as much as possible. Highlights have been:
Checking out Read Meat 7b and
Three Day Event 7b+/c on the Great Orme Lighthouse crags which was super fun and rather adventurous sport climbing. With an adventurous approach and long pitches on 'interesting and varied' rock these routes although fully bolted actually feel a bit like a trad sea cliff adventure. If you're willing to handle a bit of bird poo and the odd loose hold these routes give some of the longest steep single pitches on the Orme. The top headwall of Three Day Event is particularly awesome and feels pretty wild. This pitch made it onto the front cover of the newly released North Wales Limestone Guidebook (see below). I accidentally did a new link up climbing Red Meat into Three Day Event after traversing too far left! I'm calling the link up Red Feat, it gives a nice 7b+.
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| Jon negotiating steep 'grass' on approach to the lower Light House crags |
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| Jon onsighting Read Meat 7b |
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| Jon on the awesome upper headwall of Three Day Event 7b+/c |
I've also had a few good days on The Diamond, including a couple of tidal 'lock-in's'! I was pleased to climb Empire State 8a and Robinson Cruiser 8a first red point, both long and great. The top crux right at the top of Robinson Cruiser is particularly perplexing initially, then once figured out makes an amazing hard sequence. The crux of Empire State is quite low down involving a bouldery sequence into a wild lunge for a jug.
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| Jon on Non-tidal Screamer 7c during a tidal lock-in Diamond Session |
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| Jon on Non-tidal Screamer 7c during a tidal lock-in Diamond Session |
The big news for North Wales Limestone this week has been the release of the new North Wales Limestone guidebook; it's well worth the wait. Pete Harrison and Andy Boorman have done an awesome job. The guidebook is a real ground roots labour of love production, all the contributors to the guidebook are active locally in developing the area, all proceeds from the guidebook will feed directly into the local bolt fund.
Buy your copy from V12 Outdoor here. I've only had chance to have a quick flick through the book but I've seen enough to be very impressed.
I was also happy to see that one of my photos made into the guide, it's a photo of Tommy wading out from The Diamond about to be hit by a big wave after we got the tides a bit wrong!
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| Tommy 'wading' out from The Diamond..we even took the time to roll up our trousers! |
