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Cloudy Culdaff

Date: 24 Sep 2011
Submitted by: Anthony Feeney

Blue skies vexingly turned into rain about a mile out from Culdaff on Saturday. Undeterred PJ and I set up a top rope and slipped and slid our way up Orange Blossom and Grecian Gift between the showers.

These classics are cracking climbs made all the more thrilling by wet holds, frictionless lichen and a slack top rope that didn't run well on both routes. Still I don't often get a chance to second these days so it was good lazy fun.

Finished off the drying afternoon with a lead of Bird Nests Bulge, a wee gem of a Severe next to Bluebelle that I never knew existed. Hard for the grade and pumpy and awkward in the middle. PJ got shouted at as she took in too quickly when I missed a clip and I'm not usually that panicked on a Severe!

Good end of season fun.

26 Sep 2011
Alan

You forgot to mention the young couple surfing nearby.

29 Sep 2011
Peter Cooper

You didn't know it existed, I thought we'd done it together? Ho hum, such is life. Still, agree it's a very worthwhile line; it used to be a regular solo when there was no-one else around.

30 Sep 2011
AF

It's possible we did but that 1 ascent is lurking in the depths of my cloudy memory. Having climbed every other sub-HVS route on that wall 47 times that 1 route is lost in the bustle.