Local Sport Climbing

Skye Sport Climbing!

Fear not, the Cuillin ridge has not been retro-bolted! The slightly confusing title relates to the somewhat muddled meet that happened. The planned and advertised week had been on Skye, but with very limited interest from the club, Lucie and I decided we'd prefer to spend the time sport climbing instead. A quick check with the President and Outdoor Meets Secretary, and the change in plan was official: sport climbing local(ish) to Manchester with venues announced on Scribble day-by-day.

The first weekend of the week already had an advertised Scribble meet; rather than interfere with that, we started the sport climbing on Monday 18th. Dave Wylie had expressed interest in joining us at Horseshoe Quarry, so that was the venue for Monday. Unfortunately Monday had other plans, and threw it down with rain. No climbing done.

Tuesday was equally wet. I had a quick session at Awesome Walls Stockport, but no "proper" climbing.

Wednesday saw fantastic weather, and rather than seek out a sport crag, we opted to attend the mid-week trad venue, Cow's Mouth Quarry. Lucie Crouch, Dave Wylie, Bron Edwards and myself arrived early enough in the day to make it more than just an evening meet. Plenty of others came along for the evening, and there is a fine write-up (from Dan O'Brien) in the mid-week section of the club website.

Thursday was another good day, and we opted for the A55 sport crag of Penmean Head. Lucie Crouch, Dave Wylie, Helen Boothman and myself attended, with each of the following routes seeing a KMC ascent: Tan y Lan Kids (F5), Big Up the Lizard (F5+), Flowstone Shuffle (F6b+), Blitzy's Jug (F6a+), Broken Blackbird (F5), Steak Slice (F5) and Scared Shipless (F6a/+). Of the routes I climbed, Flowstone Shuffle stood out as the best, with the bottom half of the route being on wildly featured limestone: massive holds (once you found them!) which were jugs to hold, once the body was in the right position to load them in the right direction. If only it had continued for a lot longer! Dave, Lucie and I headed to Ty Powdwr on Thursday night, joined later that evening by Bron Edwards.

Friday was a day of mixed weather. We opted for Anglesey in the hopes of fairer weather, aiming to climb on the bolted limestone sea cliffs at Benllech. A couple of errors ensued, such as parking in the wrong car park, and paying for parking before realising the error. This meant an extra 2km of walk in, and approaching the crag from the opposite direction than the guidebook suggests, making identifying the crags tricky. After lunch in the rain, we found the Angler's Zawn crag. The plan had been to climb on the upper tier (non-tidal) whilst the tide was in, but the approach looked so slimy and unappealing that we didn't bother. The lower tier, our original target for later in the day once the tide was out, was still being lapped by the waves, the first(?) bolts visible a few inches above the water. For the sake of getting something done, we were each in turn lowered down Drum Solo (F5+) to the water level. We then "deep water top-roped" back up, so climbing the upper two-thirds of the route, which was wet and slimy. The crag would certainly be worth returning to on a sunny, dry day, at low tide.

On Friday evening, members began to arrive at Ty Powdwr for the bank holiday weekend meet (which had been re-arranged from Cornwall), and the exploits from the three day weekend will no doubt feature in the report for that meet.

Gareth Williams