Excellent, Mish Moneypenny! |
| Date: 05/04/08 Submitted by: Iain Miller And so the clocks have changed and we are into official summer time, RIGHT, sun kissed granite, long night's and mucho vertical pleasure to be had! Alas the forecast for the weekend was dire, a return to winter predicted, snow/hail and a plague of locusts forecast for Donegal. Upon leaving the house at 9am on Saturday in lashing hail/snow I headed south to Killybegs, no real plans other than "getting out for the day" being an optimist the car was full of climbing toys in the hope of vertical pleasure. Arriving at Killcar and meeting my fellow cohort, we headed west and left the Winter behind and entered a world of sunshine, dry tarmac and lo dry rock. Simply put Sail Rock is awesome! We pottered about racking up and giggling like fools in the roasting sunshine before descending to it's base. Over ambitious plans for Mainmast came and went as we descended/abbed the loose descent spur. Leaving us at the bottom of Roaring forties. Thus by default we ascended Roaring Forties, the first pitch is good climbing with no real problems to an exposed grassy ledge overlooking the seaward void. Then it snowed for 10 minutes, then it hailed for 30 seconds, all the time 200 metres away, to the East a black curtain of "rods from the sky" lashed rain onto the countryside. Salvation, the curtain stayed put and we commenced upward on warm dry rock! Is it just me or are the top two pitches exposed? Pulling out from the corner onto the main slab 10 metres from the summit onto a wall of immaculate jugs, 70 metres off the deck, was a trully excellent finish to the route. Oh, how we giggled! Mainmast remains for another day....................... |
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