Tag Archives: Ian

Climbing

The case of the mysteriously re-appearing nuts….

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29th August 2024

The Rumps – Pentire Head
Regular – Severe 4b – Lead
Pass the Duchy – HS 4b – Lead

So The Rumps is fast becoming a favourite of mine for a quick, no frills outing. Easy to get to from the National Trust car park and short, but challenging climbs.

Sunflowers on Pentire Head

Both the Severe’s I’ve done here have been on the tough side. Leaning out a lot and making you work. The rock, while grippy, feels a little unreliable, but so far it has held up fine, so maybe this is unjustified.

The Lower Tier

Its nice to find a relatively local crag which isnt all E+’s. There are a couple of HVS’s so the challenge is still there for the future.

Ian on Pass the Duchy (Upper Tier)

Ian and Dave were all smiles as well. The view helps too, with breathtaking vista’s back towards Doyden and across ‘The Mools’, the small island off the coast. I’m starting to get the ‘proper’ buzz again. All the wall work is paying dividends, and I rekon soon it’ll be time to take on a few E’s (they’re good dont you know 🙂 )

Climbing

When your mate leaves you hangin!

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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.