Nestled in the mountains of Tanygrisiau is an unlikely find; a microgranite quarry with some bolted aretes!
The quarry is located in a unlikely beautiful location on the SE bank of Tanygrisiau Reservoir See UKC Chwarel Moel Ystradau Crag page for approach description.
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| Chwarel Moel Ystradau - Upper. (The Dawn Arête is the line with the rope down it) |
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| Chwarel Moel Ystradau - Lower |
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| Chwarel Moel Ystradau |
To warm up I did a couple of 6a+/b and a 7a+ lines. The 6's gave nice climbing on excellent rock. The 7a+ would have been good if it was not for a missive scary loose flake! For this reason I recomend avoiding it...this is a quarry after all, there is a lot of loose rock in places. There is also a 7b+ I did not do, but looks pretty good.
The main event is The Dawn Arete 8a. This is quite a find. It's short but packs a punch with some powerful moves and funky climbing up an arete. A clip stick is recommended to clip the 2nd bolt, there is an as the in-site draw but the gate has succumbed to the weather and no longer closes.
I climbed the route first red-point. It's probably more like 7c, but still very good.
While I don't want to condone bolted routes in the Snowdonia mountains, in this location being a old quarry with unprotectable arête lines over 10m high I see no problem with bolts being placed.
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| The Dawn Arete |
Here is a video of Michael Allday making the first ascent in 2016:
There would be potential for some new lines in the quarry but great care would need to be taken with the loose blocks at the top.
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| Springwatch! Walking back round the reservoir :-) |
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| Walking back round the reservoir |