Mainly about Tremadog.

I haven't blogged for a while, because I seem to have spent much of my time in the library attempting to revise for my exams, but mainly procrastinating. I'm off on a climbing holiday to Alaska two days after my last exam next Friday. This is great and I'm really psyched about the trip, except it has created a lot of legitimate procrastination that is preventing me from getting as much revision in as I probably should.

Surprise, surprise, I've also managed to get out climbing a little bit. Last week Livingstone  and I headed to Tremadog for an evening hit. We arrived to find the crag completely dripping. Undeterred we set off up Vector. The first 8m were soaking wet and quite exiting, but the headwall above keeps the rest of pitch one and all of pitch two dry. Tom strung them together and I managed to follow them without too much issue. We then abseiled off into the downpour and got soaked to the skin and very muddy on the two minute walk back to the car!

King Psyche himself mad for it and about to squirm his way up Vector!

The sun was shinning on Saturday so Nikki and I headed back to Tremadog to tick some of the easy classics she'd not done before. We did Hale Bebe, Christmas Curry with the Micah Finish, Valerie's Rib and One Step in the Clouds. We swung leads all day and Nikki did really well leading the crux of One Step. Gareth and Ollie then arrived. Nikki teamed up with Ollie and they did the Weaver - Good lead Ollie! - whilst Gareth and I did Vector.

I quickly ran up the first pitch, leaving Gareth (who'd not climbed it before) to do the Ochre Slab. He climbed it well apart from one minor mishap when his foot popped towards the top of the Ochre Slab, but crimping for Wales he managed to cling on! Nice one on your first E2 Big G! I then set off up the last pith, which I haven't lead in it's entirety before.  It's quite bold, but thankfully easy until the final crux groove, by which point you are well out of sight your belayed so it feels like you're going to go miles if you come off! Thankfully I could remember how to climb the brilliant top groove (Do sequences get any better than this?).

On  Thursday Ollie and I headed to Pant Ifan with the idea of having a mega day, unfortunately not everything went to plan. After soloing the easy access pitch I set of up Integral without having read the guide book properly. I got up to the junction with Integral Direct and got thoroughly confused, because I couldn't find the belay, after much faffing around I lowered off and had a good look at the guide. Eventually I figured out where to go and climbed back up, thankfully having the foresight to remove most of my runners, which I needed higher up.

Burrows doing the last hard moves on Integral - I think that's his sex face...

Back at my high point and still couldn't work out where to belay but eventually I worked out where pitch two went. I laced the thin crack with wires, before making a precarious rock over. From here I got a sinker wire. The good hold mentioned in the guide loomed above me, just out of reach. It looked good. I climbed up and slapped for it, it was good. Demonstrating very poor technique I monkeyed rightwards, feet peddling, to a good spike. The rest of the pitch was comparatively straightforward, but rope drag made it problematic. Cheers to Ollie for belaying me for so long, while I faffed around. Ollie lead through and had a hard time fighting his way up the overgrown top pitch, it could definitely do with a good Napalming! Back at the bags it was half raining and the midges were out so we ran away!