UKC

Brothers Direct - Tremadog

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 Skyfall 28 Jun 2010
As an intro pitch to the upper wall pitch itself called Brothers Direct (very soft E1 but v nice), I have always climbed a variation not mentioned in the current guideboook which passes somewhere between the horrible off width of the Brothers (normal variant) and Emily Street (E3? which heads of rightwards).

This opening pitch effectively starts up Emily Street and then, just after some decent gear, heads up and leftwards up a slabby groove (parallel to the Borthers crack but two or three metres to the right) before heading right up some easier slabs to belay below the overhang on the top wall. The slabby groove has dark but v good quality rock with a few tiny edges on it (for a very hard crimp fest if you have v strong fingers - 5c?) or a vague ramp to do a precarious rock over onto and then balance up if you come in from the right (5a/b?).

Overall this makes a nicely balanced route with two pitches at HVS/E1 level. The groove has a little bit of wear so it seems I am not alone in using this as access to the upper wall. Anyone else do it this way?

I will be interested to see whether the new guide makes any mention of this - whenever it appears.....!

OP Skyfall 28 Jun 2010
Also interested in thoughts on the top pitch itself ie. Brothers Direct.

I always thought it was soft at E1, more like HVS really. Doing it again, I thought the gear under the small overhang prior to the crux was not as good as I'd remembered though ok enough if you don't mind spending some time fiddling in wires. The small thorn tree which greeted you on pulling up on the rounded holds also appears to have gone. Oddly, this seems to have made it easier as it used to guard (in a pricklish way) some of the better handholds on the LHS. With the slightly easier finishing holds exposed on the LHS, I'd just give it HVS now I think.
New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...