Kerry

Air Time - Photo: David Flanagan

 

I attended the 2014 Gap of Dunloe climbing meet at the weekend. Wow! Great location, great routes and fantastic atmosphere. Very similar to Llanberris in North Wales but with a huge amount of development still waiting to be done. I teamed up with Brian (Honey Badger) and we set out to get trashed on the bullet hard sandstone. Heres the pick of the routes we did on Friday and Saturday morning...

Air Time 30m E5 6a – classic, clean and safe ***

Far Away Friends 10m E5 6b – flash after watching video, 5 cams all sound - more like E3/4 5c/6a **

Name Unknown 12m E5 6a – nice wall climbing above crux of Wickedy Wock **

The Crazy Horseman 9m E3 6a – short and sweet, kneebars a plenty, just bring cams **

Wickedy Wock 12m E3 6a – perfect rock, classic! ***

Hawker 12m E2 5c – safe boulder start, eases quickly **

Willie Wonka 20m E2 6a – Brilliant, no peg but great gear **

Mighty Mouse 10m E1 5c – safe positive climbing, 5b? *

Mother Of Prague 20m E1 5b – Classic at the grade, perfect ***

Did some bouldering too. It was all on beautiful rock in picturesque locations. The edge of the onion blocks were class as was Barry’s Cave roof. White lightening was worth just walking up to look at but the beauty block that stuck in my mind has to be the striking “Exit Planet Dust” – incredible!  

Can't wait to go back!

Odd bits

I cleared out some odds and ends from some HD cards that had been building up since late last year - nothing of great quality but not worth throwing out all the same... The First problem "One for the Road" is a line Ricky cleaned and let myself, Michelle and Gaz play on. I ended up lanking it first before Gaz swooped in for the second ascent. Nice we problem and a good addition to the Scalp. The second problem is fast becoming the most popular problem in the Scalp, Michael Duffy's "Space Machine" - people often overlook the time spent cleaning and building landings for what soon become classic problems - Space Machine's landing is a constant reminder of the hard work that goes into developing new blocs - The problem gets 10 cool points for the climbing and an additional 5 just for the platform. The final problem shows James Gernon's awesome Arete, "Maniacal Laugh". This thing is a beauty! Big, proud and great climbing - I switched the camera on after the start sequence that begins in the middle of the face to the left. Once on the slab an airy traverse to the arête and then some sweet moves to the top. Rarely tried but a fantastic addition by James - one of my favourites in the area!

Some new problems

A few weeks ago I spent a damp morning cleaning ivy, moss and dirt off a load of roadside blocks in the Scalp. Brian turned up and gave a hand and Tom swung by to talk with some cyclists. Later that week I grabbed a few hours out on the problems and they had cleaned up nicely - still a few more to do but they all require better landings or multiple spotters.

Whackbat – Start on obvious jug under roof, use two big breaks to top
Kristofferson – Start with foot jam under roof and undercut. Climb steep flakes to tricky rockover onto slab
Boggis – centre of the proud slab...
Flynnstone – The arête beside a tree
Ceramic Unicorn – centre of the face to a tricky topout in a v-groove
Maximus – the big arête on big holds (dodgey landing)
Lee of the stone – the smaller arête on smaller holds (careful up there!)
NIMH – start undercutting the block, clamp the fin to top
Nicodemus – start RH undercut, LH crimp crack. Climb the crack to flake and span to nose of prow
Tigerlilly – stand start, LH sidepull. The Sit would be a cool move
James’ Crack – the beautiful crack to prickly topout. FA James Gernon back in the day
Mr. Ages – start on hanging flake with feet in the roof. Nice holds, nice moves

 

The grades might be a bit out but the problems were quality - best ones would be Whackbat, Kristofferson, Ceramic Unicorn and Mr. Ages



Raven's Glen Topo

J. Howard about to take some airtime off "Pallets by Candle Light" before making the second ascent

Topo can be downloaded from the following link:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8VOrL6GZrDjMXpUZWw4SGdTSFdvVGJKa2hmZUEyQQ/edit?pli=1

Raven's Glen Info

So if you look in the guide, page 126 you see a mention of Tonduff. Thats not what attracted me though, I can see the rocks from my kitchen window!

Heres where it is:

and here is where the rocks are:

Four lines on the Mother Boulder:

A: Left Arete (easy warm up) - Font 3

B: Creaseproof - Font 6A

C: Mother (classic!) - Font 6A

D: Pain in my Swiss - Font 5+

Sit starts to C and D look obvious but hard. A and B have low starts already. 

Three lines on Dragon Wall:

E: Left Arete (easy from sit in hollow) - Font 3+

F: Albi (start on crimps, reach high left to slopers and top) - Font 6A

G: Trogdor (pull onto sharp crimps, slap top) - Font 6A

Obvious sit start to F and G but small and crimpy!

Will have loads more stuff cleaned and climbed over the next few days :o)

Amature Hardcore

A classic from my youth (well early twenties!). Mark put his whole movie up on Vimeo for everyone to enjoy. A bit dark and sombre at times but then again so is North Wales occasionally. Underlying everything is the drive and passion the local scene had for development and exploration. Watching this made me want to get out more and was one of the main reasons I dedicated some time into sending Jerry's Roof - seeing Mark's journey as he progresses and the movie ending with his final well earned send was inspiring!! Everyone should watch this ... and then we should make our own! I've got a HD cam and will try film more when I'm out! What the hell... I'll film all the classics in Wicklow but I'll need climbers!! Anyone else game?

And as a bonus you get "Between the Rain" another classic! Brilliant!!!

Sella Wildside, Costa Blanca

Since Caroline managed to dispatch her project last week we've been free to visit any crags we want to. No choice really is there? It has to be the Wildside! This place is magic. An awesome fin of rock overhanging in it's entire length with heavily featured walls up to 40m in height. Tufas, crimps, pockets - it's got it. Located in a hidden valley and with access conditions that require climbers to have respect not only for the surroundings but also to limit the noise they make while climbing. It is a very special place indeed. It also represents the embodyment of everything I'm shit at. Stamina. Steep climbing on rounded holds and pinches. Nothing i can get my fingers behind or even stand on! Its like someone giftwrapped a crag to work on my weaknesses and put it around the corner from my house. I've so much to learn from this place. New types of footwork. New redpoint tactics. I'm so Psyched!! We've been a couple of thimes this week and I've been enjoying getting some mileage on the longer burly 7b's and 7c's. Full respect to Mr Barbour for his impressive list of Wildside sends! 8b in a day! Wow. I'm so far off the fittness needed for that type of climbing but I'm looking forward to working at it and seeing the improvements. All the routes are all so good that for now i'm going to enjoy doing some ticking. All the 7c's are the targets for now :o)


Our first visit to the Wildside this week we got chatting to the bloke in the picture above. He was a bit quite to start with but the reason became clear - he was redpointing the 8c+ pictured above. Awesome to watch. Every move dialed, he made it look effortless and then out of the blue his foot slipped and he took a huge lob from right at the top. Yesterday we were entertained by another super nice local redpoint Pinoreta 8c! Awesome fight. I saw him work this route on Tuesday evening and he looked miles away from the send but on Sat he made it through the crux and shook out before falling up the remainding 15m of sloping pinch tufas. at least twice the whole crag though he was off but he managed to keep squeezing, totally inspiring!! Venga!!

Heres the online Guide Wildside Topo