The West Face of Vivian- aka Sun Chaser Wall

A while ago I climbed a new route above Comes the Dervish called the missing link, its purpose for that was the only reason I climb it was to allow a continuous link up of a series of routes on the west facing wall of Vivian. I climbed the link over a couple of days due to rain, laziness or some other excuse that I can’t remember at the moment. Then with the flights to go to the States booked it seemed like a great training ground, being only 2 minutes from the house, and seven pitches long.

So last night after llion finished work we headed over with a rack and rock boots to try and chase the sun from the bottom to the top of Vivian quarry. The sun made it pleasant to climb in only a T-shirt, and whilst we did manage to stay ahead of the sun, we weren’t really going all guns blazing but we did manage to climb the wall in 1 hour 57 minutes, which for a first attempt was reasonable quick for a couple of average climber. When you consider that the route climbs a large selection of pitches well worth climbing in there own rights.

The link we chose and the standard for the wall was Mental Lentil (HVS), Monster Kitten (E1), To Bald to be Bold/Turkey Chant (E2/3), Comes the Dervish (E3), The Missing Link (E2) and The Madness (E1).

It is a stellar outing well worth ***, and now we have laid down the starting time, how fast can you get up there? We have incidentally left a few carabiner in-situ to help get down off lower-off without having to rethread them, it would be great if they would stay in-situ, however climbers being as they are I suspect they are already gone!