Nesscliffe

While killing time during Monday in Llanberris and trying to avoid the rain I nipped into V12 outdoors for a tea and a nose around – ended up picking up a copy of Nick Dixon’s new Nesscliffe guide (complete with promotional homemade DVD!). Droooollll…. fwefhrjfrgrjgne210o3wlndf!! Sorry, better clean that mess up!

Man, It’s about 30 minutes from my house and I’ve never been there before despite hearing rave reviews from Pat ‘The man’ Nolan! Mainly because I couldn’t find a guidebook for love nor money. Well I’ve already watched the 35min Amature DVD twice – it’s awesome looking climbing – vertical, clean sweeping walls of red and orange sandstone – arête, corners, cracks and walls. But back to the aretes! Man – the DVD shows plenty in the E6-8 range being lead – a healthy project culture seems to be adopted by the locals and the gear looks inspiring (well compared to some of the shit I’ve fallen onto anyway!). I suppose I could adopt his mail into a sort of review – a pre-visit review. On first glance the guide s nothing out of the ordinary (except for the DVD wedged in the back cover) but even after a brief scan through the pages it starts to paint a pretty unique picture. This thing is a labour of love – a family enterprise and a detailed catalogue of lines and holds. Nick has gone to great lengths to give the reader as much information about every line as possible even to the extent of showing the crag’s warts and all. He talks about dodgey gear, dirty sandy cracks, brittle holds… but then again he can, because his love for this place is so obvious through the book that none of these negatives would even come close to putting the reader off visiting. The crag itself comes across as something out of the Robin Hood era – very esoteric and ye olde worldely… I’m looking forward to seeing what it climbs like asap!!!

Expect a post-visit review as soon as I’ve been….