Diedro – Penon de Ifach

Alastair BegleyCosta Blanca, Rock Climbing Short Link

Staying near Calpe the obvious climb to do is up the Penon de Ifach which is a surprisingly large mountain which overlooks Calpe. We chose to climb the top 50 5+ of Diedro UBSA which is a 9 pitch route which is mostly equipped with bolts. Walking under the face in the morning was very impressive, as we walked around the harbour path the cliff was towering impressively above us, our line was an obvious groove line up the middle of the face.   The first pitch was amazingly chossy, but thankfully this did not continue! The rock quality immediately improved on the second pitch, unfortunately the awful rock was replaced by polish! After the polish on the first few moves the rest of the pitch was fantastic, but it felt much harder than the given grade. The third pitch was incredibly polished for the first few moves which made it feel very tenuous before the thrutch up the chimney after the polish. Thankfully the polish vanished after this pitch and just left fantastic rock and excellent climbing. The next pitch was an excellent sustained corner climb with brilliant gear and excellent. Read the full article…

Mascarat Gorge Multi Pitch

Alastair BegleyCosta Blanca, Rock Climbing Short Link

Unfortunately we didn’t arrive in the Costa Blanca to be greeted by the expected sunshine, instead we arrived to a slightly damp day. We bailed on Sella due to heavy rain and instead we managed to climb a short multi pitch sport route and another uninspiring single pitch route at Sierra de Toix. Thankfully the second morning was significantly better and we woke up to a cloudless sky. We decided to head to the impressive Mascarat gorge to climb a classic multi pitch pseudo-sport route called Llobet/Bertomeu. The guidebook said that you needed to take a small rack and graded it at HVS, it turns out that a small rack really meant a single set of nuts and a few cams as the climb was fairly well bolted for the most part. Walking up the gorge in the morning was impressive with the steep walls of the gorge towering above you with the spectacular bridges high above. After a bit of a slog up to the road level we were soon on the old bridge and at the start of our climb. As you start off a bridge it is a. Read the full article…

Glovers Chimney

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Armed with a good weather forecast we set off for Ben Nevis again with the aim of climbing Glovers Chimney, a route which I have been wanting to climb for a while. The walk in was beautiful with crystal clear skies, no wind and stunning views of the north face of Ben Nevis. Thankfully there was a path up into Coire na Ciste which saved a significant amount of energy, as trailbreaking up the approach slopes to Glovers Chimney was fairly tiring. Eventually we made it to the base of the route, unfortunately by this time the weather was starting to break as hill fog was starting to form. The first pitch was an ice pitch was fairly buried so it was unfortunately short, the ice wasn’t in brilliant condition. It was then time for the long snow slope in the middle of the two technical pitches, we completed this in two very long pitches and were soon at the base of the main chimney. From below it was looking very rimed up and icy. Once in the chimney I was not disappointed, the climbing was interesting and certainly wasn’t. Read the full article…

Minus Three Gully

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Another early start this morning to head back to Ben Nevis in order to make the most of the brilliant ice conditions. I was pretty unhappy this morning with yet another early start, and when it was raining as we were in the car park my psyche levels were pretty low. By the time we were at the hut the weather had cleared but it was very cold in the wind. We headed up into Observatory Gully with an open mind, but having seen the minus gullies looking great we decided to go and have a look at Minus One Gully. I lead up the first pitch which was straightforward to start with, but I was soon stopped by vertical snow below the first belay which meant that I couldn’t get to the belay. The crux pitch looked thin but maybe climbable, but with only a rusty peg 10m below me I wasn’t willing to try and swim up vertical snow (never seen anything like it, in the photo look at the icicles hanging down for reference of angle). After a quick abseil back down the gully we came up with. Read the full article…