Iron Bells | The Magik Rock

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.

4th October 2012

Porthguarnon

Iron Bells – HS 4b – Lead
Sloe Slab – V Diff – Lead
Porcupine – VS 4c – Lead

Parking is a bit of a problem here although on this day we were lucky enough to be able to park on the campsite. Otherwise its a short walk from Penberth. I doubt that there is a lot in it really.

Porthguarnon_Oct12 (1) — Our gearing up ledge after a thorny arrival

Pete and I rolled up not really knowing what to expect. I know that when you look at the crag it seems broken and disjointed, but after a couple of attempts we successfully managed to access the base of the cliffs via a very thorny and overgrown path. The next task was to get across to the main climbing area which is done by a series of traverses, a couple of which are quite airy, so you may want to rope up.

Porthguarnon_Oct12 (3) — The bottom of Iron Bells

We started on Iron Bells, a climb very reminiscent of Anvil Chorus’s second pitch. In fact the crack is thinner, but its not as steep. However it’s a great pitch and loads of fun, especially the overhang which is taken directly on really positive holds. The granite feels grippy, probably a reflection of how little climbing this venue has seen over the years.

Porthguarnon_Oct12 (4) — Eying up the squeeze on Sloe Slab

Pete and I were then faced with the next problem.To get back down to the lower tier involved some serious jungle bashing which we didnt fancy, so instead we decided to just keep going up. A great choice in fact as Sloe Slab turned out to be loads of fun. One for the rest of the group to have a go at and see if anyone can make the exit through the gap look elegant. Me and Pete failed big time.

Porthguarnon_Oct12 (7) — Pete demonstrates the slug move

With the weather taking a turn for the worse (the sun had now disappeared and we were frozen) we launched for the top. Some poor route reading by me meant we did a sort of mixed route part of which at least was Porcupine, a VS. I had intended to tackle to enticing thin crack on the left of the upper slab, which would have been HVS but cold hands and impending hypothermia made me decide to just get up there as fast as I could.

Porthguarnon_Oct12 — Pete on the upper tier (Porcupine?)

So all in all a great venue. Each tier has a number of options all in the V Diff to HVS range and it should be a good return next week when we come back mob handed with a stay on Trevervan camp site thrown in.