11th July 2024

Porthguarnon Cove

Iron Bells – HS 4b – Lead

I love Porthguarnon. Not sure what it is about the place, but the climbing always feels great, the rock positive and invariably its a cracking day. And I’ve yet to tackle some of the 2 and 3 star climbs.

Throttle had yet to climb on granite, so this seemed as good a place as any for an introduction. The boulder hop in is so much fun. You can go a number of different lines, either at sea level or via a ledge system about 20ft further up. Both have tricky little sections, but ultimately they’re not too hard as long as you keep your cool. Part of the fun of Porthguarnon for me is the exploration.

Iron Bells is your benchmark corner climb. Nice laybacking, with good pro and no moves that are too difficult. It even throws in a small overhang to keep you interested. Such lovely climbing. We put in a mid way belay so that I could keep an eye on Throttle, but unfortunately this proved to be an uncomfortable half hour for him, as I finished off the climb and he had to hang in the belay. So an early intro into multi-pitch climbing really haha.

To cap it all we lost one of our belay devices to Huey, so we left satisfied with the one route for the slightly arduous walk back to Penberth (but it is incredibly beautiful as well.