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Tales of lush slopers and projects galore lured Dave Noden and James Lillie into making a visit to the new area at Beddgelert Forest last night. First off Dave climbed the alarmingly slopey aręte of Vision from the head high ramp. The grade of this was confirmed later in a repeat by Gav Foster at V7/7A+. (NB. This had been done with a stretched/high pull on by Noel Craine, but few people will be tall enough to climb it this way so the ramp pull on seems like a much better challenge). Dave then linked the direct sitting start of Clear Spot, to make Clear Vision V8/7B.
Next was the right hand sitting start to the finish of Clear Spot. This starts with the large undercut (right hand) and an assortment of poor holds for the left hand; feet on the low blocks as is normal for all of the sitting starts. At first this seemed unlikely, but soon two possible sequences emerged and a 'one on, one off' competition gathered pace between Dave, James Lillie and Si Panton. Dave dropped the finish a couple of times and looked like the strongest contender, but then Si came through with a strong effort and made it right to the end before sliding off the sloping shoulder. James also made a valiant effort and came close. Dave was definitely on the ropes, but he focussed hard and despite being tired from a long session, made his next try count.
Black Spot rates a tough V7/7A+ and is absolutely superb.
“This boulder is special for a number of reasons, not only is the rock fantastic (perfect dolerite with wonderful slopey holds), the landing good, but it is a ‘system boulder’. What I mean by that is that all the problems give superb connections. There are 5 distinct stand up lines (one of which is still unclimbed), with 4 distinct sitting starts and a slopey lip connecting all the stand up lines. If you do the maths, that is a lot of problems/projects, at least 25 by my reckoning!” explained Si Panton.
Other North Wales ‘system’ venues include the now sadly defunct Roadrunner Cave, Parisella’s Cave, Pill Box Wall and the Cromlech Roof Crack Cave. Not all venues suit this style of link up development; some connections are clearly not worthwhile, or even detract from the purity of the original lines. However, when a ‘system’ venue really works you get a lot of amazing climbing packed into a small place – just the ticket for challenge hungry locals!
A decision has been made to keep to a double barrelled naming theme for the Boss Cuvier block. This means that all connections can be clearly identified by the split names. This seems to be a better method than allowing subsequent first ascenscionists to keep piling on more and more complicated names for link ups. For example, a link of the Black Spot start into the Clear Vision finish would be called Black Vision.
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