This week saw a few mates and I head down to the Gap for a hand at some outdoor sports climbing, for once! I'm not entirely sure what to make of the whole experience. After constantly training indoors and really feeling my technique and endurance progress by leaps and bounds, I just assumed progress outdoors would fall into place naturally as well. I turned out to be a bit wrong. The first route I did was Marlin on the Wall (6a+) and it was knackering, all the technique was fine and I felt quite strong but still the route chewed me up a little bit more than I was expecting for a 6a! Next on the list was Land of the Dinosaurs (6b), which much to my dismay wouldn't even let me past the second clip due to flash pump! To not get disheartened Tom and I went on a bit of a new routing look out; over the hill of the Gap and found the buttress shown in the below video. Not sure whether this truly is a new route or is Eagle (VS 4c) at Abercynon High Buttress, which is described in the guidebook as being somewhere in this area. I am inclined to think we found a new route; purely because I tried the moves on the buttress on top rope and it involved a pumpy 5 metre (French) 6a solo before any gear could be found, which for my experience, I wouldn't classify as a VS. I wanted to go for the lead, really wanted to, but the holds were snappy and a flake burst in my hands on first attempt, leading to a metre fall straight onto Tom! Combined with rock fall from the top rope, whizzing past our heads, we decided 'not today!'. Armed with a bouldering mat and some spare time I would really like to go back and do the first ascent. Soon!
Many apologies for the quality of the film footage as it truly is rubbish!
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