Logbook

Poisoned Glen

7 Comments

Kevin McGee, Geoff, George and myself met at the car park at the upper end of Glenveigh for some climbing at Ballaghageeha Buttress on Sunday.

With three of us having never climbed there before, Kevin assumed the role of local guide and crag expert.

Although the sun was making a good attempt to stay out, the crag was in the shade and the wind was blowing, making things pretty chilly…

Fittingly, George started with Patagonian Summer (HVS 5a), cruising it despite the frozen fingers. Meanwhile Kevin led The Mistress (currently HVS 5a), seconded by Geoff.

Myself and Geoff then both led Pebbles (HS), a decent route but without much gear and some serious run-outs… As someone later said ‘the gear is only there to stop your corpse from rolling down the face’.

The sun finally made it around to the front of the crag as George reached the top of The Mistress, followed with difficulty by myself. A cracking route, the difficult sections are interspersed with only marginally less difficult sections. In my opinion the route should be upgraded to E1 5b, as the difficulty is a step up from any HVS 5a I have climbed recently.

Kevin was on Tooth Fairy at this point, which appeared harder than anything else climbed that day, but still graded HVS(?). While the rest of us stood around in the sun taking pictures, Patrick and Adam Tinney arrived, fresh from attempting some other hard routes in a nearby gully. When Kevin reached the belay, we realised that someone needed to second him… Geoff wasn’t feeling keen, so George took up the challenge.

The Tinneys were starting on Patagonian Summer and George was making Tooth Fairy look easy as I left for the trip back to Belfast.

A good day’s climbing on a great crag that doesn’t see much traffic.

Andy

7 thoughts on “Poisoned Glen”

  1. Andrew, you might have a point regarding the grades. Pebbles is relatively easy but the gear is sparse and it does have the 2 short walls which are technical so maybe VS 4c. I don’t think the Mistress is any harder than Kongen or Berserker Wall. Tooth Fairy is definitely not HVS, I upgraded it to E1 for the guidebook but it’s probably still undergraded at that. Can you edit them in the online guide?

  2. Andrew, you might have a point regarding the grades. Pebbles is relatively easy but the gear is sparse and it does have the 2 short walls which are technical so maybe VS 4c. I don’t think the Mistress is any harder than Kongen or Berserker Wall. Tooth Fairy is definitely not HVS, I upgraded it to E1 for the guidebook but it’s probably still undergraded at that. Can you edit them in the online guide?

  3. Hi Kevin. I can modify in the guide no problem. But I don’t want to do it based on my own opinion, given that others have much more experience of climbing HVS/E1 than me. I guess there should be consensus about any grade changes. George Carleton and Geoff Thomas, do you have thoughts on the grades for Pebbles and The Mistress?

  4. I agree with Andrew Tees comments about grades even though I didn’t have the benefit of comparison with patagonian summers. I think VS is A fair grade for pebbles given the gear. I’ll leave the final arbitration to George Carleton ! !

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