Sea Area Malin: The Slabby Face |
| Date: 04 & 07/06/06 Submitted by: Peter Cooper )4/06 Saw Donna Ryan and self at Sea Area Malin doing some new routing, Geoff Thomas who's idea this was ended-up otherwise engaged. I finally led a long-standing project in this area on the Swedish Slab. Towards the left hand arete is a shallow overlap and the route goes, thinly, up this. Gear is all small wires and placements aren't great. At approx 6M up I placed a poor wire, only to glimpse down and see Donna holding my first 2 pieces of pro! Needless to say I survived. The route is Fred Astaire (E1 5b or E2 5a, 2nd ascentionist's comments welcome) (route description to follow). The day was rounded-off with another 2 new routes on the Slabby Face, 'A Bang On The Ear' (E2 5b) being particularly demanding and nearly having me fall off on a couple of occasions. Donna collects top marks for a good 2nd of this, much grunting was heard during a fine bit of climbing. Further marks go to Donna for getting in the beers and nuts in Culdaff, upon returning from 'the little boys room' Donna annouced she had to leave but had got me another beer!!! The bench mark is set. 07/06 Saw Brian Wingham, Donna, Alan tees and Bill Mcgowan back at Sea Area Malin. Alan and Bill got a nice new hanging corner route. Donna and self got 2 new routes in on the Slabby Face: where else? Brian took in the breeze and nearly chain-smoking his way through the evening: til he ran-out of chain to smoke. Brian was too tired to participate having been tending to some very hot bush the night before: bog-fires keep firemen busy at this time of year. Post-climb beers were had at The Crossroads in Malinhead, where all known lines were filled-in on a photo topo Alan had. |
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