North Wales – Rain dictates play

So here we are in Jo and Catrin’s place in Abergele, North Wales, enjoying a cold beer after two great days of climbing. Although, for a while, it looked like the rain gods were going to stop us.

Despite a good forecast, we drove up the Llanberis pass yesterday and were met by driving horizontal rain. Great. Undeterred, we continued down to Tremadog, home of the last hopes of the rain-soaked Snowdonia climber. Fortunately for us, Tremadog came good again – time to climb!

I must confess that I wasn’t so pleased about going to Tremadog. I have never really got on with the place, as it requires a certain style and finess, which I don’t have. Nevertheless, I ‘warmed up’ with a lead of Falcon on Craig Pant Ifan. It gets E1 5b in the old guide, but it was continuously interesting and sustained, and I wasn’t surprised (and was actually quite pleased) to see that it has been upgraded to E2 5c in the North Wales select guide.

Another upgrade in the select guide is Vulcan, from E3 to E4. PJ tied on to try it, but backed off, and frankly I don’t blame him – it’s nails!! Jo picked up where PJ left off and led it to the top (10 years after he first did it) and I followed, sweating and cursing the whole way. Great route; just bloody hard :D

Then after failing on Pincushion E2 (we’ll gloss over that), and spending a night in the CC hut in Llanberis, we hit the slate today. Highlights for me were onsighting Heading the Shot, which used to get E5 but now is officially given sport 7a. Personally I thought the bolts were too far apart for it to be called a sport route, although it’s almost certainly not E5. E4 6b would be my guess. The climbing is excellent, though really thin.

Finally we dropped down to Never Never Land where I onsighted Kubla Khan E4 6b. I was dead chuffed as it’s the first ‘respectable’ E-grade that I’ve managed this trip, and sad as it sounds, that does make a difference. Jo had a good day too as he made a great lead of ‘Short Stories’ – three bolts in 25m makes it well worth the E4 grade!!

So now PJ and I leave the Land of my Fathers and head east to England. The Roaches tomorrow, and either Stanage or Millstone on Saturday. Can’t wait!