Gogarth,The Pass and Bolted Abseil Stations

On bank holiday Monday myself and Stubbs headed down to Anglesey for some sea cliff action. The forecast was mediocre, predicting dry weather but windy at times. We arrived being first car at the car park and it was indeed very windy so we decided to forgo our original objective of Dream of White Horses on Wen Zawn the coveted Hard Rock tick.

Abbing in at Castell Helen.

Instead we headed over to the south stack and the Castell Helen abseil point and headed down to do Lighthouse Arete VS 4c*. A long abseil down to the small alcove just above the sea got us to the first stance, from here I ran the first two together before Stubbs took the third and then myself the final fourth pitch. The climbing is superb wonderful, exposed but with good gear and big holds if perhaps quite easy for the grade - I don't know if it really warranted the 4c.

Leading Lighthouse Arete.

While I'm on the subject of Castell Helen I thought it might be prudent to bring up the extremely conciousness issue of bolted belays or abseil stations in the UK. The abseil station at the top consists of half a dozen old, rusted pegs (not to mention the remnants of a few snapped ones) some clipped with glued up screwgates all equalised with various bits of tat and in truth is looks like a god awful mess and perhaps an accident waiting to happen. We backed it up with some of our own gear for piece of mind and I'd advise that to anybody using it.

Current state of the Castell Helen abseil station. Photo credit UKC.

Having spent a lot of time climbing in both North America and Europe where bolted belays and abseil stations are common place I can't help but ask myself shouldn't this be replaced by a simple set up of two bolts and a chain? In my eyes it would be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than the above abomination and also safer. Its been done else where such as the chain on Gimmer Crag in Langdale so why not here. Perhaps the biggest counter argument would be  that it could encourage less experienced people to use it and end being out of there depth of a serious sea cliff. Another issue would be where would the line be drawn, I am by no means at advocate of bolting routes entirely or even there belays but places like Castell Helen (the belay at the top of Mirror Direct in Coire an t'Scneachda would be another example) could perhaps benefit from a few bolts. Thoughts?

Back at the car after Ribstone Crack.

After finishing up headed home via the Llanberris pass and did Ribstone Crack VS 4c on Carreg Wasted which was great and bit of a contrast to our previous route as it felt pretty stiff at the grade. I managed to lead it all in one long pitch on 60m ropes with little rope drag as its a fairly straight line. Good climbing.

Classic Rock: Raven, Napes & Pen Y Ghent

Another weekend with a relatively poor forecast saw myself and Stubbs head to the Lakes to see what we could get done.

Myself leading the final pitch of Bilberry Buttress VS.

Friday actually started out with some pleasant sunshine as we left Lancashire at midday however by the time we had reached Langdale the clouds had come in and started to look rather grey and the wind had picked up. We decided on taking a gamble that we could get up Pluto HVS 5a on Raven crag before it got any worst. I led up the lovely 4c corner crack which has some good jamming and laybacking and then Stubbs did the 4c traverse which was also nice. With just the crux left the wind decided to pick up and the spitting rain started to get heavier so we finished up the final easier 4b pitch of BilberryButtress. A rapid pack up and sprint down to the Old Dungeon Ghyll soon had us sipping ale watching the now monsoon like rain from underneath a umbrella.

The Napes on Great Gable.

Saturday morning we woke up in the back of the Vectra to what looked like a promising day. With knowledge of the forecast we still decided to play it safe so drove over to Wasdale head with the intention of heading up to the Napes on Great Gable. We did the approach relatively quickly and then the climbers approach before finally scrambling up to the bottom of Napes Needle. Stubbs's lead the first section up the Wasdale Crack HS 4b* which was a fairly green, moist, polished struggle and belayed at the shoulder. I then came up and led the top block, which was less moist, but more polished. Stubbs came up, we stood on the top, had photos from some nice passers by.

Stubbs coming up the final moves to the top of Napes Needle.

Stubbs then down-climbed back to the saddle re-clipping the gear before I dis-assembled the belay and reversed the route also. We then abseiled off from the tat thats at the shoulder stance. The route was ok, and I'm glad to have of done it as it perhaps one of, if not 'the' classic route in the UK. Some say its the place where climbing actually started with its first (solo) ascent. It was however smaller than I was expecting and it didn't really feeling that exposed. Perhaps climbing a lot in the Alps and other alpine regions of the world desensitizes you to these sort of things. If your a British climber and you've not done it then it is certainly a must, but I don't think its a route I'll be repeating for pleasure in the near future.

Both Stubbs and Myself on the top. I always told him i was taller.

We were both getting pretty cold at this point so we roped up and to warm up we moved together up Needle Ridge VD***. The climbing is good but after the first steep sections becomes a little easy and dis-jointed so it was nice to be moving together and quickly. We topped out in ever increasing winds and headed down Great Hell Gate to the bottom Tophet Wall our third objective for the day. Unfortunately just as we'd put the packs down the spitting rain evolved into a similar monsoonal shower that we saw the previous day, deja vu. A fast descent scree running led us down to the valley where we proceeded to run back to Wasdale Head, arriving back at the car absolutely soaked to the skin.

Final section of Needle Ridge, with Wasdale and the sea in the background.

We woke up on Sunday morning, after it hadn't really stopped raining since it started the previous afternoon and decided to try and climb anything in the Lakes would be pretty foolish and probably not that enjoyable so instead we drove to Yorkshire to do Red Pencil Direct HS 4b on Pen Y Ghent one of the last Classic Rock ticks left in the North for both of us.

Stubbsy, showcasing his love of British weather.

Surprisingly, considering we had not got a map of the area bar a 1:250,000 AA road map and no guidebook, and all we knew was that it was a 30m pitch of gritstone climbing somewhere on the side of Pen Y Ghent with a 1-1.5 hour walk in all went well. We approached by the summit, overtaking many many ramblers, then descended and traversed into the crag as the clag came in and stumbled upon what we deiced was the route. If it wasn't for the fact that the rock was pretty wet and green the climb would of been really good and I can completely see why its in Ken Wilson's book. It is however quite a long way to walk for one pitch of climbing.

Me leading Red Pencil.

So, while the weather could of been kinder, a good weekend where we still managed to get a reasonable amount done.

Langdale: Gimmer & Pavey

The forecast was mediocre for Sunday, predicting cool, cloudy weather with a chance of showers and the possibility of sunny spells in the afternoon. After coming back from the Alps and not doing much for two weeks I fancied a big day in the mountains getting in some climbing and some summits.

Looking up to Gimmer Crag.

We left the Old Dungean Ghyll car park at around 10:30pm and headed up Mickeldore before striking off up to Gimmer Crag. We got a few showers on the way up but there was a breeze and things seemed to dry off quite quickly. Once at the foot of the lower section of the north west face we decided on North West Arete VS 4b*** to get us up to Ash Tree ledge. The route was excellent with some great varied climbing, starting with face climbing, before a crack and then a stiff move through an overhang before finishing up the wonderfully exposed arete. The top section was a little spicy as it started to rain just as I'd reached the arete. The main pitch is also a long way of fairly sustained climbing being 40-50m which is awesome.

Jonny coming up the final bit of North West Arete.

Once we topped out of North West Arete we'd intended to do 'F' Route on the upper face which is another classic VS but unfortunately it looked quite wet and it was much windier then we expected so we dropped our expectations and instead headed up 'D' Route S+ *** quickly to get us to the top of the crag. The climbing on this was good for the grade and steady all the way up.

Heading down from Harrison Stickle to Stickle Tarn.

We topped out, de-geared and scrambled the rest of the way to the summit of Loft Crag before dropping down, back up over Harrison Stickle and down to Stickle Tarn in improving weather. We skirted round the lake and headed up Jack's Rake 1 the classic scramble to the horizontal ledge at about 2-3rds height where we geared up for the Golden Slipper HVS 4c,5a,4a ***.

Jonny coming up the final moves of the 5a slab on Golden Slipper.

I thought the first pitch was fairly soft for 4c, comparing it to the kind of moves North West Arete had on it at allegedly 4b. The meat of the route though is the second 5a pitch up the exposed steepening slab. Gear is better than it looks for the first half with you managing to find a bomber wire or small cam every 3-4m. Once you reach the top of the small corner on the slap it steepens again and you make quite tenuous traverse before topping out above your gear, you wouldn't deck if you fell but I still found it a little scary being right up their at the top of a reasonably big cliff! The climbing in on very abrasive and featured rhyolite, almost conglomerate like in its appearance which means its very pinchy and crimpy in nature and you have to make good use of your feet.

Myself at the top of Golden Slipper.

The final pitch is easy and we ran the rope out most of the way to the top of the crag before quickly de-gearing and running down to the New Dungeon Ghyll and then along the road back to the car. Excellent day, and it felt really good to get out and get some milage in on rock, climbing with sacks and get to the top of a few mountains.

Portjengrat/Pizzo d'Andolla Topo

Theres not many good photos of the Portjengrat from the Almageller side floating around on the internet and even less with superimposed photo topos so I put the one below together. The Green dashed line in the approach from the Almageller Hut to Port and the Red is the ascent to the Pizzo d'Andolla and the descent.

Portjengrat Traverse AD+ IV (9-10 Hours)

A full route description is given in the Alpine Club's Valais Alps East guidebook by Les Swindon.

Swiss Classics: Dri Horlini & Portjengrat Traverse

Last week I was in the Swiss Valais Alps for some alpine climbing as a part of the West Lancs Scout Mountaineering group bi-annual alpine trip. We had a day up on the Weismeiss glacier on the first day to refresh skills and gain a bit of acclimatization. The weather has been fairly unsettled in Europe for the last few weeks, with it putting a lot of precipitation down and this could be seen as the area that is usually free of snow during the summer round the top of the Hoshaas lift was in places inches deep.

First tower of the Dri Horlini (three horns).

The next day myself and Ash headed up to the Almageller hut managing to do the appraoch pretty swiftly in 2.45hrs including a half hour for a drink at the Almagelleralp Hotel half way which we we both pretty surprised out as we've both been neglecting cardiovascular activity for the last few months. We checked in at the hut, found out bedroom, had a bite to eat and then decided to go and have a crack at the Dri Horlini Traverse AD in the afternoon as we'd been eying it up on the approach to the hut.

The Dri Horlini (3209m) is a huge rock fin, several hundred meters tall composed of beautiful looking compact orange gneiss. The traverse of its three summits gives wonderful exposed alpine rock climb of mostly UIAA III with a few moves of IV. Theres also a few abseils and down-climbs. There is some fixed protection here and there but we were last of a few nuts and cams. We reached the start in about 15 minutes from the hut and roped up to move together, we moved really sickly probably stopping to redistribute gear or swap over 4-5 times, and we over took a guided party on the ridge. Just as we were getting towards the end of the route the temperature dropped and we spotted a few snow flakes which made us quicken the pace further. We did the route in 1 hours 35 minutes considering the guidebook time is 2-4 hours we were very, very happy with.

Climbing on the traverse.

We spent that evening in the hut with some friends who were attempting the Weismeiss the next day, our plan was to head up and try the Portjengrat Ridge AD+ on the Pizzo d'Andolla. We were a little apprehensive as its a long route, with a guidebook time of 10 hours and neither of us were that acclimatized yet, but with the confidence of knowing we'd done the Horlini in well under guidebook time we decided to give it a go.

Our route started from the col to the left of the smallest peak in the center and followed the ridge obscured from view to the highest peak in the picture.

We got up for the 4am breakfast, and were out of the hut before 4:30am following the approach trail through the moraines and eventually across the now heavily receded glacier to Port, a small col before the Mittelruck. We were here for 6am, half an hour under guidebook time, which was a good start, until we went to get the guidebook out to find the start of the route and found we didn't have it. Dam. We came to the conclusion that route finding couldn't be too hard, it was a ridge route so we couldn't get too lost and we had a rough idea of the descent so we'd give it a go. As a back up we sent a message to Chris to text us a description when he got up.

Section of the Portjengrat, approaching the first of the summit towers.

The first section of the route from Port involved a little downclimbing onto the west face before a wonderful crack system which we moved together up led us to the ridge crest. The ridge climbing continues, and is very exposed with a 300m vertical drop to your right, down into Italy. The climbing is never hard from memory it was all around UIAA III but there were one or two moves of IV.

After 7 hours or so of continuous climbing we reached the summit. I don't know how far we came but we moved together and did several full 50m pitches as well. The climbing was superb all the way along, mostly the rock was sound, there was only one section with some loose rock where microwave sized piece almost took Ash out. We climbed the whole route in boots and gloved hands as it was cold, I took my gloves off twice for the two cruxes I lead. For the most part the ridge was relatively snow free but there were still a few sections where stubborn snow from the recent storm got in the way.

From the summit, we were able to follow a fairly brief and ambiguous route description that Chris has send us - he managed to condense a two page route into the guidebook into a single text message. We traverse some gendarmes and some scary snow bridges/cornices on the ridge before gaining our exit, a hanging glacier which we traversed before crossing another rock ridge and finally ending up back down on the moraine above the hut.

Ash taking a breather on the summit, with more weather coming in.

We did the route hut-hut in 11 hours, so an hour over guidebook time. But considering we weren't acclimaitized, didn't have a guidebook and had poor weather (it was snowing on and off all day and visibility was down to 30-50m) we were pleased with our effort. Certainly one of the best if no the best alpine rock route that I've done, I highly recommend it. When describing this to a friend I was trying to think of an analogy in British climbing routes and I think Ceneifon Arete in Snowdonia, but harder climbing (HS rather than Mod), 10x as exposed and 100x as long would be fairly fitting! Go and do it, you won't be disappointed.

Lake District Cragging

Its been quite a while since I updated my blog, I was very busy towards the end of June and start of July with graduating from university and then moving back home. I did however manage to squeeze a few good days in at the crag.

First was a mid-week trip to Langdale with Bec and we headed up to Raven Crag. We warmed up on Mendes VS 4c** which was good but felt fairly easy and amenable for the grade. The middle pitch (which can be combined with the first) is the meat of the route but the climbing isn't stiff for 4c. Next we did Holly Tree Direct HVS 4c*. Bec did the first pitch and then I did the crux, which I thought was stiff for 4c and it appears UKC agrees with this. Bec then lead the next pitch and I finished up to the top, its a good route and the crux is quite thought provoking. I was keen to jump on Pluto next but unfortunately the rain finally got us so we retreated for dinner and beer in the pub.

Penultimate belay on a wet Troutdale Pinnacle.

The weekend after we were in the Lakes again for LUMC's final weekend away of the summer. On the Friday evening we headed to Castle Rock of Tierman for a quick route before it went dark and did the classic Overhanging Bastion VS 5a***. I led the first two pitched in one leaving Bec the excellent 5a crux pitch which she cruised, before the short pitch to the top of the crag. The next day we went back to Castle Rock in the morning in the rain and Bec led Gangway Climb VD in the wet, the guidebook is certainly right when it says that protection is marginal in places. We then met Stubbs and headed over to Borrowdale where we went to Black Crag. Bec had been to go and do Troutdale Pinnacle on her first climbing trip to the Lakes back in November but bailed after the second pitch due to the horrendous weather and its one of Stubb's remaining Classic Rock ticks so it seemed like good objective for a wet day. The weather wasn't quite as bad as last time but we were still pretty wet, Stubbs did the first pitch, Bec the Second, Stubbs the third and then I finished up the final pitch. The final day of what had turned out to be a pretty moist weekend we were at quite a wet white ghyll where we did Slabs Route 1 S.

Bec leading Jean Jeanie.

In the last weekend of term we managed a quick morning trip to Trowbarrow where Bec manged to tick both Jean Jeanie VS 4c and Assagai HVS 5a.

Stubbs on Fishers Folly, just starting the traverse.

On the last day of term myself, Bec and Stubbs headed up to Shepherds Crag in Borrowdale for an excellent day of sunny climbing. First I did Kransic Crack Direct HVS 5a, which is a superb route that I've been wanting to do for a while. It starts with some steep, if a little polished crack climbing before throwing you into some steep moves through an overhang which ends with you finishing up massive jugs up the steep headwall - an absolutely fantastic route and highly recommended. Stubbs then did Fishers Folly VS 4c to the left which was also good fun. Bec finished off with Adam VS 5a running it all together in one big pitch. And for once we had blue skies all day.

Myself on Kransic Crack Direct.

All photos courtesy of Rebecca Hurst.