22nd December 2011
St Loy
Sloe Steel – VS 4C – Second rpt

Joe’s return from London should have heralded a few good sessions over the Christmas period, but this year the weather has been appaling. A combination of rain and wind on almost every day has meant few opportunities to get out and have a decent climb.

This was not a bad day when compared to what has been previously, but it was still grey and uninviting. St Loy as the warmest and most likely bright crag on the South Coast beckond. Dave, Tom, Kieran and Joe accompanied me in the beautiful walk in (undiminished by the overcast conditions) and we set up around Cress Cendo.

It’s an easy spot to set a top rope up on and provides a number of routes to play on. The biggest problem was that Chlorophyll Cluster was dripping wet and this had been Joe and my target for the day. We settled on Sloe Steel as an alternative, a good VS with a tricky crux. The move out of the diagonal crack and onto the rounded crest requires a bit of thought, but does provide good protection. The hardest bit is topping out through the gorse and setting up a belay as there is a wacking great Gorse bush blocking everything.

We made a real fist of scrambling out, although wet slimy, mossy rock is not a good escape route. My advice is to continue the climb on the cracks just behind Sloe Steel.

On returning to the group who had all successfully climbed Cress Cendo we practiced smearing on the first pitch of The Hairiest whilst Joe went in search of something hard to climb (an unsuccessful venture in the end).

At the end of the day, you cant always get perfect days climbing, but given Cornwall’s damp end to 2011 this was probably as good as we were going to get.