UKC

Just got the new guide for Xmas.
What are best routes to zoom in on, has to be well pro

Cheers

In reply to Owen W-G: snap, i got it too. havent done massive amounts there to be honest as the old south wales and gower guide was very awkward to use. However ive gone most the stuff on juniper wall and would certainly recommend assassin 3 star HVS. also cant do wrong with lewes castle with the likes of horus, rhea and isis all at HVS.

like i said havent done massive amounts there but the new guidebook is hopefully going to change that (once/if the rain stops). looks some brilliant climbing there all in that VS to E1 bracket

In reply to Owen W-G:

Fall Bay

In reply to Owen W-G: I would highly recommend yellow wall and Skylark, holy grain and muppet show.

In reply to stvredmond: Cant wait. Well when this weather sorts itself out.

In reply to stvredmond:

F*ck me Steve I thought you'd died! You have not put anything in your log book since forever. Happy New Year!

In reply to Bobling: He's very much alive Rob, I'm just trying to whet his appetite for trad again after he quite rightly got pissed off with this years weather.

In reply to Owen W-G: Only got one route in before rain struck, but was impressed by the setting and the climb I did at Third Sister (Paviland Valley) if you fancy a few bolts.
Juniper Wall is awesome, Assassin and the two rising traverses all look brilliant - I did a VS and backed off Assassin, but will return.
Boiler Slab doesn't quite have the scale of Juniper but the climbing there is certainly worthwhile. Fall Bay is indeed excellent, Yellow Wall looks incredible if you are up to the challenge. Done a couple of routes on Upper Jacky's Tor and that is another good crag, nearby Kaiser on Block Buttress looks tempting.
Roll on some winter sun!

The Gower Climbing Festival is an opportunity for you to come and experience what the Gower peninsula has to offer on its plentiful limestone cliffs and beautiful beaches. There's plenty of climbing for everyone, with trad routes ranging from Diffs to the high Extremes, sport routes from Fr3 to Fr8b, and a handful of bouldering areas too.

The festival has been held in 2009 and 2010, and both previous events turned out to be a great success, with plenty of visitors from all over the UK joining us for the weekend. The best way to find out what this year's festival will be like is to watch the festival video (embedded below), browse our Facebook group, or look at the 2009 festival report, complete with a feature article in the BMC's Summit magazine.

In reply to Owen W-G: To be fair, if that is the new guide there aren't going to be bad routes in it. Best areas with concentrations of routes in that grade range are King Wall, Jacky's Tor/Upper Jacky's/Yellow Wall and Paviland/Juniper Wall. Pennard as well at the Swansea end of things.

In reply to Owen W-G:
assassin
Seth

In reply to BenTiffin: I climbed at Paviland main cliff back in mid September and the vegetation was shocking, the wall below Shelob's cave barely had any clean rock and the other side of the central gully was in a pretty poor state too. Did the Ring which felt more HVS than HS when loads of holds and gear were obstructed by earth and plants.

In reply to Owen W-G:
Fall bay. Start up Seth, then finish up Lazy Sunday afternoon going over the roof.

In reply to Owen W-G:
I listed my Gower favourites E1-E3 in this thread:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=202876

not sure how many are in the new guide.

If we're including HVS then there isn't much more to add, beyond Assassin (Juniper Wall) and Isis (Fall Bay - soft HVS).

In reply to The Ivanator:
That's paviland! I agree that it's rather disappointing on first acquaintance. The wall below shelob has never had any clean rock. Worth scrambling up though for the experience of escaping the cave.

The best routes there are those HVS-E2 ones that go up the shield to the left of East Gully Groove. Has anybody had a look at the threads on Talons recently? If they've been replaced then the route is one of the best E2s on Gower, safe but very difficult for the grade. If they haven't been changed it's probably nearer E4! :S

In reply to Alun: I think I may have been too far right initially when I climbed the Ring (perhaps also accounts for why the lower wall felt hard) passed several in situ threads before traversing left, they all looked very thin, bleached and ancient. I expect it would be easy enough to replace the threads on abseil before attempting the harder routes though.
We did scrabble through the shrubbery to access Shelob's cave, which was an entertaining little pitch.

In reply to Owen W-G:
O yes, and Shelob is really amazing.

Could one abseil straight into the cave and therefore not have to do the terrible initial slab?

In reply to James Oswald:

I'm pretty sure you can. The slab isn't that terrible though. It's looks chossy but actually it's much more solid than you'd think (the vegetation is mostly due to Paviland's famous 'plant pots'). There's no gear of course, but it's basically a scramble.

What's that quote from the old guide? "Don't do Shelob if you're fat or pregnant", or something like that..?

I reckon,

HVS (top 3)
South West Diedre
Fall Bay Girdle
Skive

E1 (top 3)
Barnacle Bill
Seth
Cima

E2 (top 3)
Holy Grail
Power Trap
Half Dome

Weather and tides permitting

In reply to Max Hunter:

World's biggest sandbag. Solid E2! Nice line though.


Isn't that HVS? And isn't it not very good now the top bit has fallen down? I ended traversing just below the top to finish up the 'ridge' on the right.