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The rumour mill has been buzzing in the Llanberis scene over the last few weeks. Talk of a mega new bouldering area had the locals salivating and desperate for clues as to its whereabouts. Despite constant pestering, Nige Callender, the main instigator behind the developments managed to fend off all attempts at discovering the location details. Hock and Nodder spent several fruitless hours trekking across the hills in search of this new promised land, but to no avail. Nige even mischievously sent out decoy clues mentioning an adjacent quarry.
Nige still had a project left and he was determined to nail it before he let the baying pack loose on his pride and joy.
Now, with the first ascent of The Decoy Ploy V9/10/Font 7c/+ safely in the bag, Nige has decided to go public.
It turns out that this ‘new’ area had already seen some development by the likes of Noel Craine, Crispin Waddy, George Smith and Simon Panton back in 2003. It is of course the extended boulder field on the hillside to the right of the Milestone Buttress Boulders. This was given a brief mention on page 137 of the NWB guide. Various lines were done up to V5/Font 6c, but nothing was formally recorded.
Over the last month or so Nige, Jamie King, Katie Forrester, Jemma Powell, Gruff Owen, Aaron Nazarus and Rob Lamey have given the area a proper going over, producing a batch of excellent problems, including several V7/Font 7a+s and V8/Font 7bs, plus the aforementioned harder line. More details will be available next week, once the editor has had a guided tour, but for now here are the approach details for The Decoy Ploy. This is situated approximately 40m down the hill from the obvious highball aręte. It is the R-to-L sloping lip traverse from sitting (start on a sharp RH crimp) to finish up the sloping arete. The standing start gives a more accessible V8+/Font 7b+.
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