Time Off

Been loving having some time off with the bank holidays. Last week i was cursing the heat though. After spending the winter complaining about the cold and wet i should have been pleased to have some nice weather but i was greasing off so complained instead. Ridiculous for April! Been to the Mill a few times and even managed a 7a+ so things are looking up. Been doing some nice easier routes on the new crags and trying the projects. Making progress but i've finally hit big 8 land with a few of them so more effort is going to be needed. One of them is a big roof with a solitary hole in the middle of it. Every move is a burlfest, must be the burliest 8a-8b in wales. Definitely a cool style but i can't do all the moves yet. I met up with the Sellars clan who were over from Sheffield for Easter. I showed them Llanddulas and some nice routes were bagged. Nic was one of the UKs top sport climbers in the 90s so i picked his brain about fitness training. I tried my roof project and after some experimentation i thought i had cracked the hard start. That was until the hold fell off, doh! Nic did a good onsight of Mudjekeewis. He cocked up the crux first go but hung on in there and did it. I went back to the roof another day and glued the hold back on, hopefully it will stay put. I had a prolific day yesterday bagging 4 new routes! 3 were shorties that i bolted in winter but they were all fairly pleasant with nice rough rock. One was quite a peculiar route. Its 6a+ to the last move which is a english 6b/c move off quite a small crimp. Quite unbalanced but a bit different. Really hard to grade something like this though. 7a or 7a+ probably. I called it Off With Their Heads cos i don't believe in hereditary priviledge. Then i did a route i bolted up on Monday. It was a right effort bolting and cleaning it as its 17 metres and the crag is very loose in its natural state. It turned out to be another cracker. The first bulge is the crux but its still tricky until you reach a really good rest before some more fairly tenuous moves above. Its either 7b+ or 7c and the name is Big Kohoona Burger. I wish i'd bolted it better, its fine for a redpoint but a bit shit for the onsight, oops. Development on this crag is almost complete and i think people will enjoy it as its a good length and nice routes. I asked Norm the other day why he didn't develop LPT earlier back in the day. He said everytime he went there the tide was in so for years he didn't realise it actually went out. Thought that was pretty classic!

Ormesmen of the Week- Gary Gibson, new route fanatic

During the new route boom on Pen Trwyn during the 1980s it was inevitable that the country's leading new routers would be attracted to the area. Gary Gibson must be the most prolific new router in Britain ever with thousands of new routes to his name and he wasted no time in leaving his mark on the Orme. Although he sometimes courted controversy his contribution to new routing is undeniable. Gary's first new route was The Violater, a now banned E3 up the left side of Mayfair wall. Gary then turned his attention to Black Wall and completed most of the lines there. These routes were properly bolted in the 90s which caused one young man to write in to the mags: "take care lads because the time for agreement is over. As far as i am concerned your licence to bolt has been revoked!" 1984 saw perhaps Gibsons most classic Pen Trwyn addition. Homesapien 7a+ is a great thin technical testpiece. Gary left his mark on many of the sectors on Pee Trwyn establishing three easier classics down LPT which were destined to be popular. Other significant ascents included Plagued by Fools, Capturing the Coelacanth, Barking up the Wrong Tree and Two Ton Cainman.

Something for the Yorkshire Hombres

Some footage from 2003 of Pascal trying Zoolook at Malham, looks nails!

Praise the Beastmaker

I had 3 fingerboard sessions last week in work and felt much better at the weekend. No more arms turning to jelly after 5 minutes. Saturday i went out with Danny C. Danny has hardly climbed for a few years now which pains me as i used to love watching him beasting it. Its not that he's completely lost interest in climbing. Its more the case that he's so flippin laid back he just doesn't get around to it and get organised. Anyway he was 30 minutes late at our old pick up point and wasn't answering his landline or mobile so i drove to Denbigh, crept up to his room and poured a cup of water over his face as he slept. That taught the little shit a lesson. I took him to one of my crags and i got on my last bolted line there. A nice line with flowing moves through a hanging corner system and a very cool headwall. Danny puked into the river as i set off on redpoint. I didn't do it but was close. Danny tried my diagonal groove 7b but failed after spending 5 minutes trying to jam his arm in a crack. Was very entertaining to watch. Sunday i went to the mill despite the beautiful weather, beautiful weather doesn't make you strong! Was expecting the worst after hardly being able to pull on last time i went but was pleasantly surprised to do 3 7as first go. 7a isn't hard but it does require pulling with your fingers and arms. I was happy as i'm 12 stone and haven't been training much. Need to keep going back now, such a good facility. Finished off my project from Saturday, yesterday. Its called Strawberries Man after a 5b chubby fella who once told me he'd toproped Strawberries. I didn't believe him. The grade is 7c, vid here: (usual boring tripod scene)

It was quite hard to concentrate as there were loads of kids screaming and shouting in the river. Kids only seem to be able to speak with the volume on max. I forgave them when one said i was cooler than the climber he'd seen yesterday. Was good to know. Almost finished bolting the last two lines here which is very exciting as i think they'll both go. One is a big roof with a hole in the middle of it leading to a hard lip encounter and the other is the line of the crag. A traverse across a steep break, funky roof exit, hard lip then nice headwall. Can't wait to try them properly. Read an interesting article by Malc in a old mag about dieting. He says crash dieting can be counter productive and that its better to reduce your weekly calories gradually in order to make weight loss sustainable. Shocking the body isn't necessarily a good thing as it is likely to go into defence mode and you could lose equal amounts of muscle as well as fat.
One of the first appearances in a mag for the Ormes:

Ormesmen of the Week-Andy Pollitt, Prestatyn Conquerer

Andy grew up in Prestatyn and began climbing with his teacher Andy Boorman. Andy takes up the early story:

When he was 14 and just started climbing he used to work for a cake delivery company. Sell-by dates had just been invented - this was great for Andy: all out-of-date cakes came his way! Perhaps that explains his legendary stamina or possibly it's all those hours he spent on the brick-edges of the original Prestatyn Climbing Wall in the late 1970s?

Andy's first two real rock climbs were with myself on a school trip to Craig y Forwyn on 20th June 1978. He seconded Y Chimney H.V. Diff and a pleasant Severe called Softly, Softly. A few weeks later he was taking leader falls on Scalar VS!

In April 1981 Andy P joined a strong team for a trip to Buoux and the Verdon Gorge. There will be a star prize for the blog reader who can identify all the climbers (some well known, some well weak) in the group photo which was taken by Pete Bailey!


Great routes were climbed on that trip, but not without incident: ask Pete Bailey to recount his tale of the Verdon Gorge Luna Bong abseil, where they discovered that the rope Chris Lyon had sold Andy as a 150 feet length turned out to be only 40 metres, or around 130 feet. Pete arrived in space 3 metres out from and 3 metres above the first abseil tree, 250 metres minimum above the deck, to find that only one of the ropes reached (no knots in the ends). Andy was perched in the tree:
"How did you get there?" Pete enquired. "I jumped" said Andy!

Witnesses still have a clear vision of Pete and Andy's shrunken faces sporting manic protruding eyes as they rolled into camp late evening after an ascent of the 320 metre off-width Voie Ula on a very hot day with a very small water-bottle.

These were some of the experiences that formed Andy's early years and gave him the confidence and vision to realise that routes such as Mayfair could go free and that Chain Gang could be climbed as a trad E5 up an unlikely looking wall on a bitter November day in 1982.

Andy Pollitt is a true, talented and very special Ormesman!!

Andy also sent through a pic of Andy P on Midnight Blues in December 1980. I can think of nothing worse than hanging on a belay on the Little Orme in December:


As Andy started to progress through the grades in the 80s he to leave his mark on the Ormes and bagged some classic routes on many of the crags. The history in Andy's own 1987 guide chronicles some of the great ascents and epics. Andy produced two guidebooks, the first one coming out in 1981. This brought many climbers to the area in search of new lines. Andy's legacy of routes is fantastic. Wall of Evening Light was re equipped last year so get on it in August people! Night Glue has become one of the mega classics in the area and Over the Moon is testament to Andy's ability as it is now regarded as the hardest 8a on LPT. Someone once told me that the top crack was originally protected by wires and so the jams felt a bit better as often fingers were sitting on the wires. Don't know if its true or not. One of the greatest Ormesmen ever!

Sandstone of the South

I'm currently working down in Kent on a old skool windmill. Tim the boss was keen to get some pics of Southern Sandstone so we went to check it out one afternoon. We walked up to the entrance of High Rocks where we were met by this:


This was followed by lots of laughter from the lads and lots of cursing from Tim as he was paying! Back to the van he said and we headed to Bowles. Luckily it was the hottest day of the year and Bowles was in the sun which was perfect for sandstone. We dicked about a bit doing a bit of soloing and some quite nice boulder problems up to font 6c. Bob Elliot rolling back the years:


It was hot and sweaty but a laugh. We only had one little flat bouldering pad which didn't inspire pascal as he tried to ground up this 6c roof with a potential uncontrolled fall:

The crux involved lunging to some jams at the lip. Must have been tricky as he didn't do it Back to the car our grand leader commanded and we headed back to High Rocks. This time he forked out and in we went. The fun began on a ace 6a arete that would be a highball with decent paddage. Pascal went first, bit hesitant on the top. Pete had let us know how straightforward the top was from the comfort of the ground. Little Bob shot up it only to come unstuck on the top, all of a sudden it looked quite high and the drop off not to appealing! He had to get dragged over the top in the end. Then up steps big daddy bear Peter Hurley, not climbing for 5 months wasn't going to stop this guy and he shoots up it barefoot. He hits the same place as Bob but surprisingly his toes don't work too well on the final smear and he starts to panic. Pete has got a back full of metal after hitting the ground from a long way up in Cheedale a few years and capers like this are not recommended. It seems his legendary stamina of 10 years ago has dried up, funny that! He looks down, the fear in his face is evident as the consequences of a nasty fall flash through all our minds. Bob runs to the top but doesn't hit the ascent path first go. Petes got nothing left and down he comes, collapsing as his 12.5 stone mass hits the ground. He lies there for a while with a worried look on his face but all is ok. Pascal then drops the top of the Honeycomb wall to the left, he's having a shocker. Then we move down the crag and engage in some traditional top roping with waist belays and no harnesses:

A couple of routes are done then its my turn to provide the entertainment. I set off up a 5c hand jamming crack called Coronation Crack. I soon remember that i can't hand jam (memories of climbing The File using the holds on the face flash through my mind). I try to jam but soon realise i can't do it and revert to heel hooks and powerful laybacking. Soon enough i'm off much to the hilarity of everyone. My spirits are soon raised as Pascal drops a damp 6a crack and mauls his hands in the process:


I walk down to look at Chimaera, nice feature, then return just in time to see Pascal dropping the top of the classic Krait Arete,he's flipping boxed and everyone is cracking up. Shocking day!

Old Shizzle

Tony gave me a load of old mags as he's moving house. I love old mags and anything to do with climbing history and how things have evolved. There are gems of information that most people would never know like Neil Carson went from climbing 8a to doing Cry Freedom 8b+ in a massive leap! I keep seeing Liquid Ambar written up as a stamina route! This just goes to show that the hard routes back then involved bouldery moves and were short and nasty. These days LA would be regarded as a boulder problem. Under 30 metres is short! And of course these days you may find a Font 8b+ on a 50 metre route! Zippy wrote a good article in OTE 18 about state of the art routes. Cry Freedom was Britains first 8c but Mark Leach did it with a duff sequence which JB Tribout eliminated on the 2nd ascent. Agincourt has five 7a moves in a row! There was an interesting piece in high about a old project above La Plage in Buoux that Ben Moon checked out. It was originally Marc le Menestrel's project but he only managed 70% of the moves. Moony took measurements and impressions of the crux holds with string and foil and when he returned home his sponsor Bendcrete helped him build a replica of the roof section so Moony could train on it. Sounds like this route was a 9 and i don't think theres a 9 at Buoux so i'm guessing its still a project. Would be cool if someone finished off such an old project. Come on Ondra get yourself to Buoux!