The Magic Flute
Managed a shortish evening hit the other night with Chris, and made a fairly wise choice considering the conditions – it was boiling. The Little Orme has a fairly small scrap of rock which is conveniently North facing and home to two great routes… I climbed the classic E3 – Hole of Creation – many years ago with Toby Keep, and had a (very) brief thrash on The Magic Flute but it was fairly obviously too hard for me. I got back there a month or so ago with Keith and was pleased to do all the moves and a couple of links, but a freezing wind and numb fingers prevented any proper redpoint attempts. This time it was perfect with the crag in shade but warm.
Quick warm up on Hole of Creation – Chris leading:
The Magic Flute is the tufa on the right of this photo, with the top bolt just visible. This point marks the crux, with your left hand on a shit pinch / crimp on the thin section of tufa in the photo, crimping an intermediate with your right before slapping out rightwards onto an undercut flake. There is a rest of sorts after this, then a couple of tricky moves to the belay. To reach this point involves some classic and sustained tufa-style pinching and swinging around… could have been Kalymnos, except that the whole route is only 10m long!
Anyway, onto the main event – Chris just before the hard moves:
We both ballsed-up the first redpoint, Chris because he wasn’t concentrating and me because I didn’t really know what I was doing; at least I got a good sequence down. Short rest, and no mistakes next time for Chris. I then found myself in a very familiar place, contemplating another day here, with the terrifying walk in and another partner, again! Thankfully I heeded a very useful bit of advice and left my bloody chalk bag on the ground… without this distraction I got up and out onto the rest much quicker. I was still dipping like an idiot behind my back after this though! Very nice to get a 7c done, they don’t come often. Very motivating too, for OTMD, which i’m starting to get quite psyched for.