Author: admin

A SLEEPING PENRHYN MAWR

Sunshine bathed Anglesey yesterday as Alun and I enjoyed what must be one of the world’s best paddles. We carried our kayaks down the golden sands of Porthdafarch Beach, dodging kids with bucket and spade, mum and dad on deckchairs, divers getting their tanks ready, and more kids on inflatible dolphins. 1 foot waves and a very slight breeze made me hope the open sea might have a bit of texture to play on. First stop was Penrhyn Mawr which was almost completely flat on the way north; just a widespread rippling of the surface and a very slight churning noise giving away the dormant power of my favourite tidal race.

We carried straight on towards the pretty South Stack Lighthouse, detouring close into the cliffs to take our kayaks through narrow gaps, and to see who was doing what on the world-class climbs. It’s a stunning area, with wonderfully convoluted ancient grey and green cliffs which look more like squashed plasticine than hard rock.

The rising tide spurted us through the gap between South Stack and the mainland and we were on our way to North Stack. After another detour to the cliffs and a chat with some friends we started to make our way back. Penrhyn Mawr was running a bit now and we had a brief surf and felt the exhilaration of free riding on the sea. “The Stacks” is one of my favourite paddles and it was great to get out there again! Especially on such a lovely day!

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’.

As “proper work” goes, filming adventure races is hard to beat. I’ve just got back from 6 days on the West coast of Ireland, filming ‘GaleForce West’, the first adventure race of it’s kind in County Mayo. I’ve been seakayaking in the Achill Head and Gallway area once before but I really appreciated it’s beauty when I saw it from the land aswell. We were lucky to have mostly dry and sunny weather and could enjoy the many mountains, the wonderful myriad of islands, the steep cliffs and sweeps of sandy beaches. My job was generally to climb up a mountain, or small hill, ahead of the competitors and then film them as they approached me. It involves a lot of running through bogs and over uneven ground so that I can get as many different shots as possible in 5 or 10 minutes. I spent a lot of time on top of conical Croagh Patrick, near Westport aswell as in several other lovely areas. I usually work on a few adventure races every year, employed by ‘Dream Team TV’ as one of their camera operators. It’s a great way to see some of the UKs most beautiful areas and be paid to keep fit! The days are long, with very little sleep often, but I really enjoy it.

I got back home to Wales yesterday and am straight into making homemade jam with Alun. The damson trees in the garden are full of purple fruit ( or at least they were until this afternoon). Right now they are boiling away with a frightening amount of sugar, the old jam jars are washed and being sterilised in the oven, and we are looking forward to our first installment of homemade jam on our toast tomorrow morning!

This bank holiday weekend in the UK was not the best weather, but Alun and I still managed some respectable and fun climbing in the nearby slate quarries, and on Monday Gemma and I went on a little jaunt to the very pretty Puffin Island. Gemma and I disagree as to who is the bad omen, but the fact remains that whenever we go paddling together, the wind howls! Monday was no exception, but we didn’t actually mind because it kicked up a few fun waves in the race between the island and the mainland.

Puffin Island, off the NW tip of Anglsey, doesn’t contain so many puffins after rats were released onto this very special refuge, but a few years ago the rats were exterminated and the odd pair of puffins has been seen since. There are also lots of other nesting birds, like shags and kitiwakes, and it’s a fantastic place to see seals. They are very curious here and will come right up to the kayak and even play with your paddle. I’ve already got some good underwater shots of Trys there with my minicam, but this time I carted my big camera with it’s bulky housing to the island in the hope of some top quality underwater shots. I should have known that with Gemma there, it would be a bit too rough, and the rocks that the seals usually laze on were being bombarded by waves. Still, we made a quick circuit of the very cute island and made our way back to the 0.5km race which separates it from the mainland. It was a challenge surfing with the housing rattling around in my cockpit, but also a lot of fun! Just what the doctor ordered to clear away the cobwebs.