I must have had a look of surpirse on my face when after I made the hold I actually stayed on, and managed to cruise to the belay for glory. We headed back after that as I had arranged to meet Llion for some after work (well for him) cragging. So we headed to the railtrack slab and climbed Here today, gone tomorrow a route that was given E4 6a previously. However it has had a couple of extra bolts added a few years back and is now more like a soft touch E3, with maybe 1 move of soft 6a. Its a great line though and well worth climbing alongside Off the Beaten Track.

We also climbed a couple of other new additions to the Railtrack Slab, one was OK the other was a bag of shite if I am totally honest. All good though, the amount of time I am spending on the rock means I am growing in confidence, strength and stamina by the day.

There is more new from today but I will wait till another day, as its late and I am tired! This weekend is time First Aid certificate renewal! Two days in a classroom!

In an attempt to escape the crowds we went onto Craig Y Castell, forgetting that the new guide and at least one article had mentioned this crag. So it was a surprise to find about five teams there. Although the majority were doing Creag Dhu Wall. We decided to do One Step in the Crowds, a classic E1, that I had never done before. So I lead the first pitch, and what a pitch, a really amazing route. The pull round the first roof is interesting, whilst the second roof, although not technically the crux, is both commiting, exposed and fantastic. It is probably one of the best E1 in Wales.

Llion ran up the second pitch and back at the ground we scouted about for some more routes to climb. As I went below the first pitch of the Wasp, I realised there was another gapping hole in my climbing CV, so racked up ready to do battle. The guide simply says climb the crack, sometimes strenuous. To be honest it should read climb the strenuous crack, at times very struously! Another great route, well pitch and just liek the name suggest there is a sting in the tail. Although I managed to safe some beans for it.

Llion went for the top pitch but was rappeled off, so there are a few wires and crabs in the top pitch if anyone is interested?

However I was today up on the conscience slab, so called by the main protagonist behind the development of this slab, as his conscience was rather troubled by the placing of the bolts on his routes. Which by today’s standards is rather odd, as bolt protected lines in the quarries are extremely common, given the recent move to grid type bolting and excavation of new routes.

When Mike Raine developed these routes, bolting was a rather new thing, something that was still raising an eyebrow or two. In placing those bolts he was stuck between the trad ethic of the time and the desire to climb this stunning if slightly overlooked wall. Anyway today the routes have seen a little bit of a renaissance, after he re-equipped them and added one bolt to a route where the previous wire placement had blown out.

Today I climbed Is it a Crime?, a simply lovely E3. Don’t believe guides that make it out to be E2, as if this is E2 then the Dervish is E1. The route feature some fine run-out climbing on easy terrain and then some nice thin crux moves next to bolts. We then went onto climb Never as Good as the First Time, another great E3, although Simon manned up and climbed the 6b top section of Sweetest Taboo.

The joy of this slab is that it is only a few minutes from the car, and you can get up and down these routes pretty sharpish, I think Si and I were only there for a little over an hour. It also gets the even sun, and was out of the rather brisk wind.

It is one of those things that instructed groups often get a hard time of climbers, as they can be seen to monopolise routes with bottom ropes. I think we managed very well today, and only held a couple of climbers up by a less than a couple of minutes as our guys were mainly at the top of the crag rigging top ropes, and then belaying each other up to the top. As such we had a low impact on the cliff, but it is certainly a growing concern for this crag, as centres have often not clashed with climbers like they do in the peak, as most single pitch crags in North wales aren’t particularly good for climbers.

The main thing was it didn’t rain until we started heading down to the vehicle for an ice cream in Eric’s. It then stayed dry for the drive back to the centre.

My mission for this even was to try and climb in Bus Stop Quarry, as I sat in the car waiting I ran into a couple of friends who had just climbed “Wonderful World of Walt Disney”, I was and still am very jealous, as it a route I have wanted to do for ages, but never got the bottle to get on it! After they left it started raining so Bus Stop was off, and a quick text had me drive to the damn climbing wall.

I have to say it wasn’t a happy place this evening, as it was mainly full of people who had been wanting to climb outside but were repelled indoors. Looks like the ming is starting to hit, and just in time for when I finish work!

This is of course due to the clock changing tomorrow night when I am out on Camp, with a Summer ML Training course. I think I am going to suggest that we don’t put our clocks back/forwards until we are off the hill. Unless I remember whether we loss or gain an hour in bed. If we gain an hour I might just allow it!

The beaconeering session was great, finally getting to a reasonable level of strength and power, and I have to come back outside! In a way gutted, but in another way not at all. Its funny but many people don’t like climbing indoors, I however love bouldering indoors, as it is really gymnastic, and something that I don’t do that often outside. Outside though I love to climb trad and sport, but its trad climbing that truly inspires me.

Something about the challenge of protecting yourself, whilst climbing up a route that seems far more rewarding, as it requires far greater skill, and somehow feels more primal than the clip and go of sports climbing. Anyway here’s to after work cragging, sadly I won’t manage it on Saturday, unless someone runs up with my rack, rope, harness and rock boots to Cloggy!

To start the ball rollign I nipped up the slab start to Reinnetta on the Merlin Buttress, before head over to Rio. I did nearly make a joke about how many instructors it takes to balls up a retrievable abseil off Yogi, the answer is two by the way. So I lead Rio with one rope, and then Rocio fired up Yogi.

To the side of us was Tim and Jez, I hadn’t seen Jez fro what seemed like years and it reminded me of those days working at the Beacon Climbing Centre. They did inspire me to have a go at the rotue they were on. Although I tried the route to the left, only to remember that I am about 6 inches too short to make the crux reach for a good pinch, although I did reach the pinch, at this point is was raining hard, and my foot slipped off the hold it was on, so I quickly engage reverse gear, and down climbed to the junction with the HVS they were climbing.

I tussled up this, making it look harder than ot was, mainly because my eye for gear was a littel rusty, so took me an age to find a poor runner, where I should have got a bomber wire. We abseiled off this and headed home, ironically just as the sun was taken over the day!

Was good to get out though, so cheers Rocio for making me go out today. Although it wasn’t a hard sell, “Mark do you want to go out climbing”, “yes!”

If you are interested in going on any of these awards then you can contact Andy via his homepage.

Single Pitch Award Training Courses are two days in length, based in Northern Snowdonia and are non-residential. Candidates should be registered with the SPA scheme and have gained the required experience. The fee is £125.

Single Pitch Award Assessment Courses are two days in length, based in Northern Snowdonia and are non-residential. Candidates should have completed the requirements to attend the course. The fee is £125.

Mountain Leader Award Training Courses are six days in length (two three-day modules), based in Northern Snowdonia and are non-residential. Candidates should have registered with the ML scheme and have gained the required experience. The fee is £325.

Mountain Leader Award Assessment Courses are five days in length, based in Northern Snowdonia and are non-residential. One trial course is split over two weekends; the rest are of a continuous block. Candidates should have completed the requirements to attend the course. The fee is £325.

Climbing Wall Award Training Courses are two days in duration, based at both an indoor climbing wall and an outdoor climbing wall, and are non-residential. Candidates should have registered the CWA scheme and have gained the required experience. The fee is £125.

Climbing Wall Award Assessment Courses are one day in duration, based at an indoor climbing wall and is non-residential. Candidates should have completed the requirements to attend the course. The fee for the standard assessment is £85 (£95 including the abseil & top access module).

Single Pitch Award Training 2011

29^th and 30^th March                                                T1

28^th and 29^th April                                                T2

24^th and 25^th May                                                T3

28^th and 29^th June                                                T4

26^th and 27^th July                                                T5

23^rd and 24^th August                                                T6

27^th and 28^th September                                    T7

1^st and 2^nd November                                                T8

29^th and 30^th November                                    T9

Single Pitch Award Assessment 2011

4^th & 5^th May                                                            A2

26^th and 27^th May                                                A3

30^th June & 1^st July                                                A4

28^th and 29^th July                                                A5

25^th and 26^th August                                                A7

29^th and 30^th September                                    A8

3^rd and 4^th November                                                A9

1^st and 2^nd December                                                A10

Mountain Leader Award Training 2011

4^th to 6^th and 25^th to 27^th March            ML.T1

15^th to 17^th April & 6^th to 8^th May            ML.T2

8^th to 10^th & 22^nd to 24^th July                        ML.T3

2^nd to 4^th & 23^rd to 25^th September            ML.T4

11^th to 13^th & 25^th to 27^th November            ML.T5

Mountain Leader Award Assessment 2011

14^th to 18^th March                                    ML.A1

9^th to 13^th April                                    ML.A5

14^th & 15^th May and 3^rd to 5^th June            ML.A2

17^th to 21^st October                                    ML.A3

14^th to 18^th November                                    ML.A4

Climbing Wall Award Assessment 2011

7^th April                                                 CWA1.11

As I delved into its history I found out that the same team not only discovered Nylon but also the first synthetic rubber. This is short bringing together of that research into the history of Nylon.

It started in the 1920’s with a German chemist Herman Staudinger working in the neutral Switzerland who suggested the existence of long and complex polymers, made up by the joining together of smaller molecules. It took a long while for the scientific community to believe his theory.

It was left to an American borne scientist Wallance Hume Carothers, and his team at the DuPont research centre who proved his theories right, when in the 1930’s they discovered both Neoprene and Nylon. Two substances that are virtually omnipresent in today’s society, but before April 1930 Neoprene (The first Synthetic rubber) didn’t exist, and despite nearly giving up on the idea of long molecule polyesters due to their low melting point, but in 1934 the discovery of Nylon changed all that.

Nylon is as material that we simple take for granted nowadays, but lets take a look back at just what the pre-polymer age had for us. Parachutes and stockings were woven from the silk and natural thread from the humble silk worm, and ropes were braided from hemp.

As a modern climber, I think you need to consider the later hemp hawser laid rope. Made from essentially the husk of the hemp plant, whilst reasonable tough, the ropes which had been made this way or similarly since before 2800BC were heavy, virtually impossible to tie into knots, had little to no stretch to absorb any impact force and extremely weak. The saying the leader never fell wasn’t so much because in this age before harness, the leader might asphyxiate if they could get the weight off the rope, but more likely the rope would actually snap or just as break the climbers back.

As a natural, material hemp also was quite likely to rot if not dried properly, be eat en by vermin or succumb to any other number of deteriorations. Nylon was set to change the world in general, and then climbing. Its inventor and man seen as the discoverer of this new age was not to see the flight of suggest of this new material. As two years before Nylon went into commercial production Wallace who was like Winston church plagued by his ‘Black Dog’, succumbed to his depression shortly after the untimely death of his sister. He did not get to see the success of his mew material that was about to set the World Fair alight when it was used as an alternative material for women’s stockings.

The out break of the second world war meant that the production of nylon was moved onto more military focused products like parachutes and ropes. At first simply taking the traditional hawser laid design of three thick strands made up of many other individual twines wound round each other, and using Nylon rather than Hemp. Its better strength to weight ratio, and elasticity were instantly noticed. It was to lead to the eventual use by Edelwiess in1953, to construct the modern kernmantel rope, which was not only stronger, but more knotable and far better at absorbing impact than the older ropes.

More than that of course, as well as new ropes, the invention and use of nylon lead to taped slings and then of course the first climbing harnesses. So without Staudinger theory, and then Carothers’ team at DuPonts research, we might still be climbing with Hemp ropes and if you remember that team also synthesized the first rubber so without it we still might be in hobnailed boots as well!

So if you are reading this in the comfort of your own home and have a glass of your favorite tipple, or even if your at work with a cup of coffee then please join me raising a glass or mug to Wallace Hume Carothers and his team at DuPont. Without it the world wouldn’t have nylon stocking fetish’s or climbing rope.

Caff follow the Ochre Slab on Vector

I ran into James McHaffie when I got back from Scotland a few days ago. He is also on the Winter ML bus at the moment, although he has his assessment the week after me. When I ran into him he had the Friday off, so wanted to go climbing, being at a loose end I said yes. I knew even as that word of agreement left my mouth, that it was going to be a hard day, even before we decided on a venue.

So Friday arrived and the weather looked good for half a day, so we decided on a quick Tremadog hit. Vector into Void was what Caff suggested. Now Void is hard even on a dry day, and Vector is relatively straight forward on a Dry day. So I opted to take the first big link up pitch to the Void belay. Caff had packed the rack and I had robbed Llions ropes.

So when I go to rack up, I see that caff has 8 quickdraws and about 8 cams, and plenty of wires. Looking up at the very long and winding pitch I am about to do in damp to wet conditions, I immediately feel under equipped. I can get 8 runner in teh first we 40ft ptich! So I headed up being as economical with teh runners as I could, I got to the start of the Orche Slab, and had a moment trying to get onto the slab on damp holds, a move or two up the slab and the crack was running wet, so I had to pull on the sorry excuse for a peg, before making it rather shakerly to the top of the groove. Where I had no more quickdraws ot get the next 40ft to teh Void Belay.

My answer was to make a belay where I was and bring caff up, and get him to lead through and bring me up to the Void Cave. At the Cave he quickly shot up the pod and the crack above, as caff would. I then here the words safe, and no sooner had caff said on belay climb when ready, did the rain start! Now be under no illusion, I am not anywhere near climbing fit at the moment, and Void would be be on a very good day, and now the route is getting wet!

Caff had to endure a lot of me shout “TAKE!!!!” at the top of my voice every few seconds. As I struggled my way up. It was such hard work even pulling on the limited gear he place! I will now ache for days! Anyway thanks for the day out, although it was a baptism of fire for my Trad climbing.

Caff on the top of the Ochre Slab on Vector - Tremadog

Caff disappears up Void - tremadog

Looking into Pen Y Cil,

On my way back down last night, I was asked wether I was keen for the Lleyn, Hell Yes! I have been walking around for too long, and I needed a climb like a junkie needs crack. Its just that the crack was looking for is more socially acceptable!

So we went for a VS and some V grades, in a king of V for Vendetta kind of a way, we worked out that Gullimots Groove on the VS stood for a very nice pitch follwoed by a very scarey one. I got the scarey one on a kind of medium that I can only best describe as a cross between playing giant jenga and rock climbing.

We then head to Porth Ysgo, were we reminded ourselves that we are as young as we once were. Although Llion and Katie have obviously been secret training as he flash popcorn party, and Katie did the Incredible Shacking Woman from a stand up. As for me after what seems like months without bouldering I manage to climb Jawbreaker V5. How do I feel now? sore!

LLion is up on the cliff somewhere, although a bit like stop the ball!

Llion on Gullimots Groove - Pen Y Cil

Katie powers up the Gullimots Groove

Topping out in the Sun - So unscottish it felt good!

Llion on the Porth Ysgo Classic - Closer V3?

Easy Slab at Porth Ysgo

Dirty Porth Ysgo crimpers

Classic Slopey Mantelshelf

Another Porth Ysgo Classic, I really need to dig out that old Guidebook sometime

Katie having it on The Incredible Shaking (Wo)Man

Llion on The Incredible Shaking Man

Jaw Breaker *** Classic

Funky Holds on Popcorn Party

A fine position