UKC

Climbs 16
Rocktype UNKNOWN
Altitude 719m a.s.l
Faces W

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Motivation, starting P2 © M. Bailey

Crag features

The crag lies on a diagonal with both top and base sloping down to the right (looking up). The top is generally about 80 m above the base. There are no breaks that divide it into buttresses but the character changes from left to right so there is a natural division into sectors ("sector" seems more appropriate than "buttress" as they aren't really separate). On the left (looking up) is the Pillars Sector, next is the steep Central Sector taken by Motivation, Rhythm Section and three older (1990s) routes whose details are not known. The Central Sector extends to the right hand end of a big wall split by a prominent diagonal overlap. Right of the overlap is the Slabs Sector in which the lower half of the crag consists of three successive layers of slab. The two left hand layers merge directly into steeper ground. Above this, heathery links give access to finishing pitches on the upper buttresses.The right hand layer of slabs runs up all the way to the heather link and the upper buttress.

The climbing is very good, typically with long and intricate pitches on excellent rough rock. A fairly long walk in and access involving abseiling and scrambling make doing a route here a full mountain day out.

Approach notes

The crag is high on a complex hillside. A direct approach from below is very arduous and traversing in is complex and slow. The best approach is therefore from above. 

Park at the lowest of the Sheep Pen laybys on the A5 just above Ty Gwyn. Take a good track that heads left up the hill from 100 m or so below the layby. After about 25 min it crosses a wooden bridge. A few metres beyond the bridge cross a ditch and head diagonally left up an old track (now a sheep track) past a sollitary hawthorn. Head for the bottom of the wall and fence that run down the hillside above. Here a gate, or a stile, leads over the wall. Follow a reedy track almost horizontally leftwards round the foot of the ridge. Turn right where the track fades and follow the edge of the reeds until the angle eases. A reed-infested continuation of the track reappears, contours left round the hillside then bears right (uphill). A gate comes into view on the crest of the ridge just as the track fades again. Join the path along the crest by the gate and follow it to the main steepening. Make a big left-to-right zig zag up a quad bike track. Where the zag levels off, follow a faint track almost straight up to a shallow grassy rib. At the top of the rib trend right and up to the dry stone wall. The angle eases at a rocky shoulder about 70 metres beyond the top of the wall.  Traverse right (looking up) and down across the heads of three gullies and two more shoulders to the 4th shoulder where a small cairn indicates the start of the scramble down to the abseil point. The abseil point cannot be seen from here but can be viewed by looking down and right from the 5th shoulder: locating it from here helps orientation on a first visit. From the 4th shoulder, descend the true left flank of the third gully and cross the first notch in the ridge on its (true) left into the bilberry groove beyond. Scramble down (care with loose stones) to a terrace. Traverse this left and down to another rib. Descend a short rock corner on its far side and a few more metres of grass to the insitu abseil point. Make a 27 m abseil down a groove to a bilberry ledge by a rock crevasse at its foot. Traverse the bilberries easily into the gully below the crag and scramble up or down to the start of the routes. If the parking at Sheep Pen is full, the crag can be approached from parking at Braichmelyn by following a pleasant path through the woods and up the ridge all the way to a short boggy section just before it joins the normal way. This takes about 10 minutes longer.

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