UKC

Is it a desperate vertical treadmill of slippery thrutching, or is there any actual climbing with hands and feet involved?

In reply to teflonpete:

In a word- yes, apart from the first slabby bit of the first pitch. Damn near got my knee jammed for good in one of the upper sections.

In reply to teflonpete:


A bit like Marmite i think, you either love it or you hate it!

I think its brilliant route and the polish justs adds to the flavour!

Despite the polish it's very good positive climbing and is a long way off vertical bar the last little chimney which can be delightfully squirmed up if one wishes. Just been up it now, do it if you haven't.

In reply to teflonpete:

Why does climbing have gto involved your hands and feet? Why can't it just be any form of upward progression.

And in answer to your question directly, the starting slab require the use of hands and feet, as does clambering around on the second pitch and getting into the chimney and out of it. It's possibly the best route I've ever done.

In reply to teflonpete: It is all steady away until the first move of the last pitch.

This is very polished and very hard for the grade, but it is only about a move and a half after that it is fine. The climbing varies fron slab to vertical. Some of which is just stunning the classic hand traverse pitch is not to be missed, and the last pitch although hard to start has a commanding position above the slab below.

In reply to teflonpete: It's all beautiful, especially the last pitch, which can be much more elegant and easy than you'd think from below

In reply to teflonpete: One found the use of hands and feet reduced the need for squirming about and levitation..

In reply to teflonpete:

"Polish" is a subjective word. You will only slip on it if you think you are going to. It's a self fulfilling prophecy which only leads to thrutching and yet more "polish" - otherwise place your feet properly and enjoy it.

In reply to mlmatt:

Just because my knees and left elbow are knackered, so I'm not really a fan of routes involving knee jamming and arm bars and I'm a bit put off by the chimney pitch.

We're setting out to climb the maximum Classic Rock Welsh route footage we can in a day, so were going to start with The Direct Route, then scramble round to the Heather Terrace and do Grooved Arete before heading off to Idwal for Hope, Lazarus, The Arete and possibly Grey Slab.
I've done the Idwal routes before, with the exception of Grey Slab, but I've never climbed on Milestone and only attempted one route on Tryfan, Gashed Crag, that ended in retreat from a polished chimney when it started raining.

In reply to teflonpete:

Good luck with your plans. I tried this once. Even though we started at 7 am we were just too late to get to the start of Milestone Buttress and had to wait nearly an hour to get going with a very slow party in front, then painfully slow progress behingd them. Bottleneck on the final chimney where we did eventually persuade them to let us pass through.

Then round to Grooved Arete (tricky route finding) only to find a queue of 5 other parties in front. They were VERY slow and it was late afternoon by the time we topped out.

May you'd have better luck doing them on a full moon?

In reply to teflonpete:

I've done it sharing the leads and found it all fine, fairly easy V Diff actually. Except for the chimney pitch which had water streaming down it when we did it so we avoided by going up the easy ground to the right. (a bit of a wet footed adventure and very easy). It's polished but this really wasn't a problem as the holds are mostly quite positive.

sounds like you've got a fab day planned.

In reply to teflonpete:
Cheers for the replies and info guys. Getting caught behind other parties is my main concern (apart from the polished chimney), although I do plan on starting very early, possibly even 3.00 am. If we could be first party on Milestone and Grooved Arete then we can rest up in the queue for a while at Idwal. We might sack it off as an idea and go and do something else yet, we'll have to see.

In reply to teflonpete:
You might have more luck queue-wise if you started with Idwal and then headed back for Milestone Buttress and Tryfan. You'd get to Idwal before the crowds, and Tryfan after the crowds, leaving just one route where a wait would be likely.

re the original question, the 1st pitch is slippery, but so long as you expect to fall off, you won't. The chimney pitch can be started elegantly which makes it hard, or with the beached-whale-legs-waving-in-the-air approach, which makes it a doddle. The rest is fine.

In reply to Toreador:

Good thinking, especially since the walk in to Idwal is easier in the dark than routefinding on Milestone and I'm familiar with Hope and Lazarus so would be better for a headtorch start. Cheers!

In reply to teflonpete:
Guess it means you need to decide earlier if you're going to try and get something on the grey slabs in... then figure the best walking route to Milestone to save your knees.