And so after a short leave of absence - down in Sevenoaks seeing my girlfriend Emily off, on her 3 months working holiday in Greece :( - I am back in Wales and back to action! Returning to Porth once more, Olly and I began our traipse through the undergrowth to get back to crag we had spotted in our previous post. Once we finally managed to find the blasted crag we set about constructing the two abs needed to get both of us cleaning. I chose the main face, starting on the central crack splitting the otherwise vertical walls, whilst Olly proceeded to get stuck right into the formidable looking overhang. With rusted and rotten fence stakes as the only anchors, this ab was proving to be one of the dodgier abseils I have ever constructed. But it all held fine and cleaning began.
What a long and laborious task it is, cleaning cleaning cleaning and with no immediate reward until the bolts actually arrive! The face I was working on was pretty dirty ( So much so that I think I will call the crack line 'Dusty, Dusty' if I manage the first ascent) But at least I had a much better time than me ol' chum Ol who was taking down cupboard sized chunks of rock, peeling back layer after layer of friable crap and still not finding anything solid! - All the while eye the tremendous overhang block that looked a little bit precarious. Overall we got three routes semi clean though by no means perfect and have come to the conclusion that the overhang is not worth really bothering with! Not much more can be said about today except that using a shunt makes ascending a line really, really easy whilst a Gri-Gri does not! I am looking forwarding to when all this 'rock gardening' (to quote my absent girlfriend) is over with and we can get down to using some good old fashioned heavy machinery!
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