More nav and session by the sea

Today was day two for my navigation team. Today we headed up fro a circuit up and over Cnicht. Weather was really pleasant throughout the day, which usually means navigation was quite easy, so I turned up the difficulty to see what the team are capable of. A strong day from everybody. After work Blair, Caff, Luke and I headed down to the Great Orme for a crank on some sport routes. I sent Night Glue (7a+) and then had a play I've Been A Bad Bad Boy (7c) which was super hard, after Luke put the clips in for me. Caff and Blair were also climbing at their limits and only just got back to their bags before the tide came in!

Intro to Navigation

Today was Day 1 on a Complete Navigation course. I met up with the group who all have little or no map and compass skills so we had lots to get on with. From the centre we headed out south into the forest. Here the group were introduced to basic navigation skills and techniques. We worked our way over the road and headed up to Crimpiau summit for some great views down Ogwen valley and over to Snowdon, before heading back to the centre. After a talk with the group about mountain weather I headed down to the bouldering wall with Blair for a quick session.

Fairhead

Just arrived back from a week away in Northern Ireland sampling some of the countrys best trad climbing. 100m abseil ropes packed, double set of cams packed, vast ammounts of chalk and spare forearms are Fairhead essentials. Not only were we tackling the uber long routes but doing this in some of the foulest weather I have rock climbed in! Winds gusting up to 70mph bringing in cloud and rain. We were all climbing in down jackets where possible and even gloves!We had a team of 10 and between us we climbed around 150 pitches of rock ranging from HVS to E7. I was climbing with Luke for the whole week and we climbed everyday ticking off many of the 3 star classics - Hells Kitchen HVS 5a, Toby Jug E1 5b, Blind Pew E2 5b, Jolly Roger E3 6a, Born to Run E4 6a, The Mask E5 6a plus many more. There are so many amazing routes, 60m crack climbing pitches, amazing grove climbing, face climbing, brutal hand jamming routes, something for everyone. So much new route potential too!! If your thinking about a rock climbing holiday, Fairhead is the answer.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Infact I have hardly had a spare moment to keep track of the routes I've been doing. Over the last month I have been sampling various different venues around North Wales, some local some more distant from Llanberis. The weather has been ideal for lots of cragging with short walk-ins, The Great and Little Orme, LLanberis Pass, Tremadog, Gogarth etc. We have also had some good spells of weather which have dried out the mountain crags such as Craig Y Ysva and areas up around Snowdon. Had a few hits up in the slate Quarries climbing the classic routes aswel. Been super busy at work too, mainly working on climbing courses but also some ML Trainings and navigation courses. Just finished working on the Rapid Development Rock Clinic whis is a month long rock climbing course. Heading off to Fairhead with 9 others tomorrow for a mini break!