Thanks to the handy work of Dave Linnett of Bald Eagle Productions, we have a great little movie of climbing Isambard's Kingdom, an anti-classic HVS on one of the most iconic of Pembrokeshire landmarks. Thanks Dave for the invite to tag along and the resulting film! You can check out other Bald Eagle Productions films here.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw5ElsMeoGg&w=854&h=480]
As said in the title, sometimes the weather wins. You can keep an eye on the weather during the lead up to a job with a temporal obsession. The time then comes when you have to make a decision. Luckily the decision to drive up to the Peak District was pretty easy as the weather looked fairly settled. I drove to Phil's in Hereford and repacked my kit into his van and on we drove, through thick fog. We met up with Jerry at a deserted YHA (whose name I've already forgotten) behind a farm, north of Ashbourne. The fog was even thicker here and by the morning there had been no change. We carted all of the climbing and filming equipment into the beautiful Dovedale, along the river and onto Dovedale Church, our crag for the morning. Our target route was Snakes Alive, a corner pitch but surprisingly varied and a Peak limestone classic, going at the very reasonable grade of Very Severe, 4c ***. Due to the conditions, the route felt desperate, like climbing a giant bar of soap. I had to climb it twice to get all of the angles Jerry needed! We went on to Ilam Rock to have a look at Easter Island (an E1 5b first put up by Ed Drummond in the 70's) but it was too wet and greasy to even begin. The following day we headed to High Tor in vein hope that it would be dry there. It wasn't and the fog was even thicker. We had our eyes on Skylight, a Joe Brown VS 4b, 4c ***. After a horridly wet and slimy first pitch, both Jerry and myself decided that this was just rubbish! After a bit of a beery night and a weather forecast that looked pretty much the same, we used the third day as a recce for a further project. Not the most productive three days, but not totally fruitless...
Good day out yesterday with Chris and Choire in Range East. The sea was wild, so staying away from it's watery grip was a major concern. This was mainly successful, barring one minor wetting. After rethinking our original objective we settled for Galactic Co-ordinater, a lovely two pitch route on the Triple Overhang Buttress. That done we took an airy abseil into the left side of Blockhouse Buttress to get funky on the two pitch route Startruck, and what a voyage into the land of the up side down that was... Great fun with two cheeky chappies. Today it was time to get Choire and Chris's VIP tickets to the newly opened Disco Buttress. Chris got his wiggle on by jumping on Disco Tech. Choire took at flyer off Disco Leg, and after a short rest got back on and topped it out - nice one Choire! To finish off, we headed over to west side of Disco Buttress and threw a rope down on a meaty looking line through a large roof and slash crack above. After a quick top rope try, I led it to give a two star E2 5b named Panic at the Disco. Wish I'd saved it for the onsite! Great couple of days guys.
On Wednesday I met up with Dave and Robyn at Mother Carey's Kitchen car park. After a morning's top rope practise on King of the Disco, the weather closed in and we made retreat to Alun's house for warm cups of tea. The following day was forecast to rain all day, so plans turned to a fun day at Oakwood Theme Park. The day following was delightful, and progress was made on KOTD and another route to it's left. Alun even came out to put up a new route to the right of Disco Leg. Nice one guys!
Seven new routes on a newly developed Pembrokeshire sea cliff?
Dave was down to stay for a couple of days and I hadn't really thought about where to go. The last few times that Dave has visited, we'd mainly been poking our noses around areas that seemed underdeveloped in the guide books. We had come away each time with some cool new routes and had a good laugh. We headed to Mother Carey's, with an idea to check out an area between that and Blind Bay. We found a lovely set of little walls, with good lines and on top quality limestone. Check it out if you're in the area!
