Pant Ifan

Burdy and I headed to Pant Ifan but stupidly managed to forget the guidebook. Thankfully I've spent far too much time at Tremadog and can remember where most of the routes go.  I wanted to do Mangoletsi Direct Start, which I'd tried late last year Burrow, but unable to commit wimped out and escaped up the normal start. It went okay this time and I manned up above the RP and committed to a cool sequence on some of the roughest rock going.

Matt on the super sticky rock at the top of Mangoletsi Direct Start.

Matt finished up Mangoletsi but with no guide I unintentionally sandbagged Matt onto Mangoletsi Superdirect (E5 6b). He got up to the old peg before realizing the next moves definitely weren't 6a and came back down.  We managed to work out where the route actually went and Matt dispatched it with style.

Matt pulling over the crux roof.

The route is very well protected with a fierce and hard pull through to top roof (I wasn't good enough so after a couple of goes I stood in a sling). Above that it's okay, with more good gear, if you can hold it all together. The climbing is very high quality and deserves more attention, pity it isn't in North Wales Rock. It's clean at the moment so get on it!

Better luck next time Big Balls - Nice shades by the way...

As we abseiled down Barbarian we heard the unmistakable boom of Ben Alsford arriving at the crag. So we sandbagged him into leading Mangoletsi, which he couldn't do! Matt set of the first pitch of Itch E2 6a and took a couple of falls, trying to do the one desperate move, before pulling up on the runner. I tried to free it but ended up doing the same. I then lead the excellent top slab, which I'd done before.

Matt trying the heinous move on Itch pitch 1.

Me leading between the trees.

We finished off with a combination of Quakerman and Monkey Puzzle, which was very enjoyable on very rough rock. I was going to finish up Harvey Proctor's Spanking Slab but I ran out of quickdraws and, with out the guide, wasn't too sure where it actually went.

We then collected a load dead wood from bellow the crag, bought some beers, tin foil and fish and head to a beautiful sandy cover near Porthmadog, where we had a big fire and cooked dinner in the embers. Why would you want to live anywhere else?

Why would you want to live anywhere else?

Yum yum!