The summer season is upon us and its been a busy time since the last blog post. There's been an influx of family groups which is nice and the weather has generally been pretty good - between some not so great weather, either way, there's been plenty of adventures all over Pembrokeshire! Here's some of the shots from recent outings...
It's felt like a pretty busy climbing week - which is great! Four days guiding and skills courses; one in Penally with Louie, one in North Pembs' with John and son Edward, and two days with Will and Dan from Bristol in St. Govan's. Also out for some personal climbing adventures with Max. B and Edmund. M - both with some exciting moments! I'll let the photos do the talking...
So on Tuesday I had the pleasure of getting back out climbing with Pulkit. He wanted to expand on the trad skills he has been progressing with of late and it was time to go big. We headed to Proud Giltar and abseiled into our multi pitch journey and lesson. After four pitches and skills covered, we topped out hungry and ready for a late lunch. Lunch sorted it was another 60m abseil to climb the fantastic "Dave Against the Machine" by an equally good new direct start. Finishing by a roped scramble up the top third of Proud Giltar ridge. A good intro day to multi pitching.
The following day we headed to Becks, where a couple of mock leads then lead to some harder top rope routes. Good effort Pulkit for all your progression buddy.
On Thursday evening I headed to Bristol, on tip that there was some stuff to be done on some of the recently developed Frome Valley sandstone, by Mark Davies and Guy Percival. There was one route in particular that me and Dave had our attention on - Morris Dancers on Ecstasy, a brilliant "VS" put up by Mark a little while ago. I've climbed a lot of trad routes in and around the Bristol area over the years and I think this is one of the best "VS" four pitch routes going... We also climbed a cheeky E2 5b that is deserving of a star and I failed to get the onsite of Right Crack that I'd award two stars... What are you waiting for Bristol?...
A musically interesting video by Dave Talbot on my on-site first try failure of Right Crack. Good route though...
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC7FbF-11kk&w=854&h=480]
On Friday I met up with Jake and Pablo at 4:30 at the Castle Martin army base, to get our passes and head in the Range in search of some fun. Abseiling down the approach hole it soon became clear that the routes that we wanted to get on were becoming cut off by the tide. Jake had mentioned climbing Chute To Kill if we couldn't get on them, so back we went up the slimy E1 that ascends back up the abseil hole! With few further options due to rising tides, bird bans and lack of time, I decided to climb another "through route" - this time Bullet, a one star VS that also manages to incorporate a caving section, to an incredibly exposed pop out onto the face above to the top. Having climbed two of the three caving routes that basically all start from the same start, we thought it only right to complete the "Triple Crown" and I was pointed up Lost in Space another bizarre 3D route taking in another Indiana Jones style tunnel, which again piped out into a spot of space walking to finish a long way above the crashing sea. All routes were wet, slimy, dark, awkward but amazing fun after you get into that sort of thing!
The following morning I was at St. Govan's car park where a motley crew of experienced trad climbers and friends from Bristol turned up for a weekend of Improvised Rescue training. It was great to catch up with them all and hopefully give them two days of practicing what to do if things go wrong while in committing trad' climbing situations. We covered all sorts of skills starting with the basics at the start to going through options for full blown serious situations towards the end. Good effort all and thanks for a great saturday night in the pub!
Nice to see Rachael's article of one of the weekend courses Climb Pembroke delivered for the BMC in May. Thanks Rachael for taking the time and good luck with your future adventures!
https://www.thebmc.co.uk/traditional-climbing-on-sea-cliffs
Prussic training, to escape from a "tight spot". Intro to sea cliff climbing course delivered for BMC members.