Wales and Portland





Andy at Idswell slabs
30.05.2011





Had a few fun days in Wales, although it was fairly wet and cold at times. Arrived on Saturday afternoon and climbed at Little Tryffan. The following day, rain meant we decided to go for a walk instead, but it cleared up and dried about three pm and so we decided to go and try our luck at Milestone Buttress, where we managed to climb one route (Direct Route, VD***). I led the first pitch and Tom led the second. As the fourth pitch was wet we all just scrambled out from there. We did, however, have a bad time getting back down, as we were expected to be back relatively early and it was already getting quite dark. Instead of taking time to look for the descent which we weren't sure existed, we decided it would be best to ab-off the fixed rope next to The Pulpit, which was, unfortunately very much like a waterfall at that point. Despite only having one prussik loop between the three of us, we all managed to get down with barely a scratch, and made it back to Gwersylla campsite for 23:00... Monday was to be our final day of climbing, but no climbing really happened - it rained quite a bit and we weren't sure how much it would clear up by the time we left, so instead we decided to go for a little walk followed by a stroll and lunch through Betws-y Coed. It was a shame that we didn't get to climb, but was nice to have a rest day, although the drive back became quite long and tiring!



Chris starting up Tipping the Scales (F7a)
31.05.2011

Today, after a relatively late start, about 9am, Chris and I decided to head off to Portland, where Chris wanted to work a couple of routes at the New Cuttings. It being an odd occurence that people should want to climb sport routes with me, I clearly seized this opportunity to go climbing, despite the New Cuttings being low on my list of favourite climbing locations... The climbs there are all fairly short, which therefore supposedly accounts for the difficulty of the low-grade climbs. We climbed Elephant on Rollerskates, F4, then received a blow to our confidence by having to rest on the second clip of Limbo Dancer, F5. I then realised that it was just a question of pulling through, and felt slightly ridiculous... I then led Tipping the Scales, F7a, but used a clip-stick, so didn't really count, even though I managed all the moves after bouldering half-way several times first - an interesting climb, but the flowstone section and then the top seemed rather sketchy, and the third bolt had been ripped out, which would have made the climb very scary to lead normally...