Well, we did get out climbing last night. It took a bit of cunning to avoid the really strong winds, so we ended up in the bottom of Vivian Quarry, somewhere which is a popular destination for me and my friends. However it also means that I have pretty much climbed out all the routes.
Llion attempted Time Bandits, a hideous route, that makes you think you are doing really well, and gets something like F7b(+) in the new slate guide book due out soon, but don’t be mistaken it is only F6a to get to the final bolt, and a english 6c move guards the lower off. Think of that for a while a slate english 6c move, equals virtual impossibility. He failed, and I decided to have a go at Glurp, an alleged F6c.
The route climbs the slab/groove just right of Clap Please, and has been partially retro bolted. Although the second bolt is a rusty old bolt stud that has been bent probably by a falling rock, so it doesn’t quite take a wire hooked over it, and is a reach to hook in a place where a fall is going to result in a probable grounding!
Above you can arrange some suspect runners in the groove, before making another desperate reach to clip the next bolt, the gripper clippers continue all the way up, until you leave the last bolt and have to man up to make the final moves onto a ledge where the climbing eases to the top. I thought more top end E4 rather than F6c. Certainly harder than many of the E4’s I have been on recently, but not quite E5, and not worth a star.
I have also been on a couple of easy sports routes in Bus Stop, the first route on the left as you walk in. Called First Stop, is rather poor, and I was extremely suspect that the lower off was in solid rock. It looked like a block about 5 inches wide and two to three feet high. Personally i think it should be debolted, as my assessment is the lower off may actually fail.
The route to the right sept……..grian or something similar is a rather disapointing F5a. With poor rock nearly throughout, but no more some than on the ledge below the ‘headwall’.
Anyway, we headed back to the village after climbing, and Katie was heading over to a secret training camp based in the french pyrenees. She is bound to come back stronger than ever. I wonder what the cost of such a training camp would be, it sounds like it would be like a cross between Boot Camp and Kill Bill karate training.
