Craig Peniel is a little known but superb bouldering venue situated just above the south east side of Blaenau Ffestiniog town centre. The area was first developed by Dafydd Davis back in the early 90s with around twenty problems up to 6C+.

On Sunday Jack Rattenbury added a couple of new lines. First up he climbed the obvious, steep sds to Peniel Pincher (an excellent 5+). This went at 7A with a hard slappy first move.

Next up Jack climbed Jack’s Sitter 6C, the powerful line rising up out of the low alcove just left of the start of Peniel Traverse. Pull on undercutting the hole with your right and make a couple of hard moves up into the traverse; swing left for a few moves and rock up onto the upper slab.

There is a lot of potential for harder problems on this 6m high boulder, including a spectacular looking highball line which looks around 7B+.

Watch this space for more on this over the coming weeks – or get down there yourself and get stuck in.

To reach it walk leftwards up the incline left of Chwarel Manod until it flattens out. From here the main boulder can be seen 150m diagonally over to the left (OS ref 713 455). There are several good satellite problems in the same area.

Ground Up is collaborating with local community group Antur Stiniog to produce a series of mini bouldering guides to the crags around Blaenau Ffestiniog. These will be available as free downloadable pdfs in April.

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