It was a beautiful sunny weekend and Alun and I dusted off our climbing shoes and ventured up the road to Llanberis Pass. We don’t seem to have had much time for climbing this summer so we eased into it on Saturday with some E1s at one of the less popular crags, Scimitar Ridge. I was feeling rusty so I seconded everything. It was great to be sat high above the road and the rest of the world, enjoying the solitude and the sunshine.

A lively wedding party on Saturday night meant we had a late start on Sunday, and with a wooly head I led Ivy Sepulchre – an impressive corner which suits my style of climbing ( lots of bridging and laybacking!) Alun wanted to lead ‘Grond’ on the next level up, described in the guidebook as “an explosive enought test-piece” and “superbly butch”.
We went and had a look at this overhanging corner crack – it’s a really impressive feature but it did look very hard! Sensibly Alun listened to his hangover and decided not to lead it today. Flushed with my recent success, and ignoring the fact that you are meant to get up “Grond” by jamming your feet, hands, arms and anything else that fits into the crack – which I hate and am not very good at – I decided to give it a go! I have to admit that it was much too sustained for me to climb ‘properly’; I had to rest on the rope about 5 times when my strength ran out, but once I’d recovered I did all the moves ( mostly using bridging and laybacking and avoiding jamming whenever possible!) and I felt quite satisfied that I made it up at all. I even started to enjoy the climb once I’d reached the safety and sunshine at the top! Alun seconded it much more impressively, doing proper jams and ‘in pain’ noises and everything! The photos are all of ‘Grond’.

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