Triple Crown Quest

The Mayfair Wall triple crown consists of the three grade 8 routes: Masterplan, Masterclass and Oyster. Mayfair is a classic Welsh wall stooped in history with some of the best sport routes in the region. The triple crown is a good challenge as all three routes are completely different in style. Oyster is a short burly crack put up by Jerry Moffatt is 1983 and graded E4 6b!!! It gets 8a now, surely one of the biggest sandbags ever! I had a quick go a month ago and couldn't do the original shoulder press, such a hard move. I managed to work another sequence though so it should go. Masterclass is another Moffatt route from 1983 and was 7c+ for years. It used to get a fair few ascents back in the day when people used to train on brick edges. These days it doesn't get much attention is generally regarded as being nails. The start is nasty and sharp and the crux is unlikely and technical. It is quite cool in that it makes you do moves that seem inprobable. I guess it's a bit like slate in that respect. I've always got shutdown on it before but can do the moves now. At the start of the climb there is a big hollow flake which would likely slice through your rope if it came off on lead. I'm going to pull it off, i don't think it will affect the climb that much and i don't care as it definitely has the potential to kill someone! Masterplan is the newbie of the trio, it was put up by a handsome visionary in 2009. It definitely has the nicest climbing of the trio and is more modern/bouldery (and hence more popular than the other two). Difficulty wise there is not much between Masterplan and Masterclass (probably the difference between hard 8a and soft 8a+). As far as i know only Pete Robins and Neil Dyer have done all three. I spent my 30th birthday belaying Robins and my route The Hole Truth at Dyserth. I was intrigued to see how he'd find it as i'd never seen anyone else on it. I had worried that someone might be able to handjam up the hole and sure enough Pete did. It was hard getting into the jam though and he couldn't release it when he got to the lip. He spent ages messing about with it and causing himself pain. For me the really hard bit was getting into the Hole but Pete was steady on this and could go straight into the good part (Jordan said he could do this too). I guess thats the difference between 8b bouldering strength and 7c strength. Luckily for me he found the end tricky though and found the toehook to be quite low percentage. He was too boxed by the time he had it worked so will have to go back. It must be my hardest FA as he's done all the others 2nd go. Jordan turned up after we'd left and bagged the 2nd ascent on his second session, nice one la. I was down LPT yesterday thinking to myself what a strange pastime redpointing is. You go to the same place time after time, and just do exactly the same thing then go home and come back and do it again. Climbing up big cliffs seems to make sense but redpointing seems like a strange way to spend your life. Big up to Tommy who ended his seige on Pas de Deux!