Monday 26 July 2010

The Welsh Monsoon

Well the weather for the past week has not been fantastic - in fact its done the same as it has for the past 4 years. The promise of a nice spring and a beautiful June has given way to the wind and rain of the Welsh monsoon - nicely timed for the start of the school holidays!
Its great weather for those of you wanting to brush up on your navigation skills but not ideal for rock climbing in the mountains!
Thankfully here in North Wales we have a few venues which are pretty reliable when it is wet in the hills. One of these is the Great Orme at Llandudno. I took a trip out there on Friday afternoon and after a quick warm up got stuck into my long term project - a 7c sport route. The photo topo below is taken from the North Wales Limestone Wiki .



2. I've Been a Bad, Bad Boy 7c/7c+ ***
Mark Pretty, 19.8.1988.

I've got the first half up to the traverse pretty well dialed in now I just need to get fitter and stronger and work out the most efficient way of doing the traverse section - lots of hard work needed!

On Saturday I was working for Seren Ventures and took Peter Feller and his team over the Glyders on a wet, foggy and windy day. They were doing some last minute training for Kilimanjaro which they hope to climb in a couple of weeks time - good luck! The views from the top of the Glyders are awesome and should look like this,



unfortunately we couldn't see for more than 20m in front of our faces for most of the day. We definitely earned our cream teas from the Pen y Gwryd Hotel that evening!