Heard this a lot over a great weekend climbing with Fiend in Wales. Apparently having 60m half ropes is a crime though I don't think it rates quite as highly as cycling, running or hill walking on the list of things punishable by death but I could be wrong.
Anyway other than having the length of my rope complained about it was a bloody good weekend for a whole host of reasons. It was my first time doing trad in 13 months and it showed the first time I racked up and struggled to remember which side of my harness I rack my cams on. Once that minor issue had been sorted though I got Yellow Route in the bag and a fine route it is too - well worth doing whatever grade you climb. Well worth checking out Creagh Dhu Wall as well if you are in the Tremadog area - two fantastic pitches on great rock. I also managed to second two E1s and an E2 clean as well which I was quite happy about as I am a fat weak boulderer.
After two days of trad I was shot (figuratively anyway) but not to the point where bouldering in the Pass seemed like a good idea once I had gotten over the excruciating tightness of my shoes. With my feet now only rating as painful I tried Browns Crack which proceeded to eat the backs of my hands a fair bit thereby moving the pain about at least. Twice I got past the hand eating crack (which I got sorted relatively quickly) only to be repelled by the crux at the top due to not being able to figure out where to place my feet and after the second time I gave it the honour of being my first nemesis in the Pass. From here we went onto the Roadside boulder - flashed the rising traverse in good style and then made a complete hash of the start of the direct from the same place!! Got it on the second attempt which added to the disappointment but didn't detract from what is a great problem. From there we went across to the slabs on the opposite side of the Pass and after taking into consideration the lack of skin I decided to attempt the classic V3 slab problem over the equally good looking V2. The only problem with the V3 is that it has a vicious move off a mono for the right hand and by the time I had worked out the feet positions I was running out of time and after experimenting with some very random taping it saw me off to leave me with another nemesis.
Other than some great climbing pROJECT mAYHEM got us there and back without a problem apart from a very annoying rattle but at least I know the location of the rattle now so the mission to get that resolved sometime over the next few days. Also having slept in the van for three nights it gave me a much better insight into how the layout will work and just proved that it was the right thing to do when I bought it.
Anyway other than having the length of my rope complained about it was a bloody good weekend for a whole host of reasons. It was my first time doing trad in 13 months and it showed the first time I racked up and struggled to remember which side of my harness I rack my cams on. Once that minor issue had been sorted though I got Yellow Route in the bag and a fine route it is too - well worth doing whatever grade you climb. Well worth checking out Creagh Dhu Wall as well if you are in the Tremadog area - two fantastic pitches on great rock. I also managed to second two E1s and an E2 clean as well which I was quite happy about as I am a fat weak boulderer.
After two days of trad I was shot (figuratively anyway) but not to the point where bouldering in the Pass seemed like a good idea once I had gotten over the excruciating tightness of my shoes. With my feet now only rating as painful I tried Browns Crack which proceeded to eat the backs of my hands a fair bit thereby moving the pain about at least. Twice I got past the hand eating crack (which I got sorted relatively quickly) only to be repelled by the crux at the top due to not being able to figure out where to place my feet and after the second time I gave it the honour of being my first nemesis in the Pass. From here we went onto the Roadside boulder - flashed the rising traverse in good style and then made a complete hash of the start of the direct from the same place!! Got it on the second attempt which added to the disappointment but didn't detract from what is a great problem. From there we went across to the slabs on the opposite side of the Pass and after taking into consideration the lack of skin I decided to attempt the classic V3 slab problem over the equally good looking V2. The only problem with the V3 is that it has a vicious move off a mono for the right hand and by the time I had worked out the feet positions I was running out of time and after experimenting with some very random taping it saw me off to leave me with another nemesis.
Other than some great climbing pROJECT mAYHEM got us there and back without a problem apart from a very annoying rattle but at least I know the location of the rattle now so the mission to get that resolved sometime over the next few days. Also having slept in the van for three nights it gave me a much better insight into how the layout will work and just proved that it was the right thing to do when I bought it.
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