It's been a good couple of weeks with loads of climbing in Pembrokeshire, a couple of trips to the Wye Valley and an overnight stay while working on Skomer Island. Some guiding, new routes, classic's and some new routes that turned out to have been climbed already - it's all good...
This weekend saw Climb Pembroke running another BMC course on Sea Cliff Improvised Rescue training, for affiliate club members in North Pembrokeshire. Eight participants spent the weekend looking at various skills that can sort out minor problems, to full blown epics. The more I run these type of courses, the more I realise that these skills are so vital to climbers taking them selves into committing areas. Thanks everyone for coming and I hope you all feel a lot happier with your future climbing.
Yesterday I was out with Alice, who wanted to brush up on her rope work and anchor set ups (also in North Pembrokeshire), Porthclais was heaving with groups, so we headed to a little known spot a short walk further on, to go through skills for the day. As with the rescue weekend, the weather was great and there were times I felt a bit too hot... Nice one Alice, it was great to catch some rays with you while boosting skills!
So now we've officially reached autumn, but the weather seems to be improving, so as far as I'm concerned summer is here again! The last couple of weeks have been busy, despite the unsettled weather (how British do I sound?! - No more talk about weather...).
With the school summer holidays, I've been doing a lot of work with family groups, interspersed with some adult guiding and skills courses.
On Monday I had a cool day out personal climbing with Paul Donnithorne, exploring an unclimbed sea stack around 20m high, coming away with three new routes. After that, we caught up with Dave Linnet, Sarah-Jane and Sachor and climbed the wonderful Isambard's Kingdom, on The Green Bridge of Wales. Great route but a little crumbly at the top...
Yesterday I was out climbing with Emma Alsford for the first time which was really cool. She's been a pioneering climber on the sea cliffs of Pembroke for many years, and what she does't know about climbing here isn't worth knowing! We first went to St. Govan's East, then headed for a last route at St. Govan's Main Cliff. The weather was unexpectedly cloudy (hang on, I promised not to mention the weather again - what can I say, I'm British...) Thanks Emma for a great fun day out.
