I’m a climber (well, for a given value of climber). I’m also a geocacher. I’ve a habit of making my geocaching milestones (caches #100, #200 etc) a bit “interesting”. There is a particular one I want for cache #1000, and that one is halfway up a route on Lliwedd. Given that that is somewhere I would far rather climb in the light half of the year (climbing by torchlight is only fun in the pub afterwards), I’m going to have to get a bit of a wriggle on. So, there may be a certain recurring theme to my weekends for a little while . . . because I have a little bit of a mission.

Andrew, it emerged, had never climbed on slate before. Not once. Not ever. This was a deficiency he was somewhat anxious to rectify, so we ended up at Dali’s hole in blazing sunshine and oven-like heat. “Hot” was an understatement, but fortunately we managed to find a patch of shade to hide in between routes. Dali’s being very user-friendly indeed (short walk-in, bolted routes at fat-weak-punter-friendly grades), we were able to just keep climbing, limited only by energy and enthusiasm starting to flag somewhat in the late afternoon.

The plan, hatched over beers the previous evening, was for there to be a barbeque at the club hut. We needed burgers. Judging from the bare, empty shelves in Tesco’s, it would appear that everyone else in the whole of North Wales had the same idea. Fortunately a quick investigation turned up some sausages and kebabs that had somehow escaped the ravenous hordes and hence saved us having to try to barbeque the pasta that had been the original plan for dinner.

The clear skies and blazing sunshine continued into Sunday: it seemed sensible to head for the sort of high, bleak, windy crags that normally feel like hypothermia central. So we headed towards the Moelwyns in general and Craig yr Wrysgan in particular.

We got there eventually. *Very* eventually. But on the plus side, the huge diversion round the roadworks took us through some gorgeously scenic bits I didn’t know were there – I shall have to go back there for a walk.

I hadn’t been to Craig yr Wrysgan before, so there was a whole new world of stuff to go at – we started with a very nice 4-pitch VDiff, and it was only when we’d finished it that we realised there was a whole load more rock up top . . . it’s a crag that comes in two tiers. We decided to investigate the top tier, Andrew spotted a HVS he liked the look of . . . game on!

So . . . a new crag visited . . . and we’ll be back.

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 13

Sport Routes (led): 1
Trad Routes (seconded): 33.5)
Trad Routes (led): 7.5)