Time is running out.

Jirka got a very good job offer back home in Czech, so we got only have 3 weeks before he’s moving out of the country again.

I’m very happy for him, but also sad to lose yet another climbing partner. With Conor moved to the UK, Andrew moved to the Middle East, Derek&Padraig move to no-climbing-land of injuries it doesn’t look good in terms of future outdoor adventures.

With this in mind we wanted to make the most of it and got back to Dalkey for 1/2 day to do some routes.

I’ve teamed up with Sonja, while Team Czech went off together.

Between 4 of us we done (leader listed 1st):

THE SLOPS 14m S 4a (Sonja&Mic) – she actually took an unlucky fall from before 1st gear, right into the bushes. Luckily no major damage.

DIPHTHONG * 14m S 4a (Jirka&Tez) + (Mic&Sonja) – I can’t believe I’ve never climbed it before. What a great and pleasant (read: easy) route!

THRUST *** 24m HVS 4c, 5a (Jirka&Tez) – apparently there were people TR it, and it took them a while. Not exactly ideal if you ask me…

HELlOS *** 34m VS 4c (Mic&Sonja) +  (Jirka&Tez) – I’ve lead it last year, forgot how run-out that route is at places, but defo 3 stars!

From there I’ve setup a TR for:

HOTHEAD ** 20m E2 5b  – and we all done it on pretty much first try. It’s a pity that it’s so poorly protected, otherwise it’d be amazing lead climb.

 

We cut the evening short to go back to Derek & Irka’s to talk about future climbing plans (Fairhead next weekend, Sicily in October) and have a drink in celebration of Derek’s low key 38th bday. Happy birthday mate, get back in shape. The mountains are calling!

 

As we were browsing some questionable hair styles (visit the album on the link below for bonus photo),  Tereza made some amazing pastries. I’m not really sure what or how exactly these were made, but oh my, they were good!!

As usual all the photos are in the album.

 

 

 

Tour the Wicklow

What’s better than going on a motorbike around your local area?
Getting your friends to come along on their bikes as well!

Thanks Louis, Darren, Dave, Mat & Ewa for a great Saturday morning!

 

As usual, click the photo below for the link to the album.

 

Bell Rock, co. Wicklow

Jirka is a type of a person that doesn’t like to sit idle. There is always something going on, and it tends to be unique. During last week’s trip to The Burren we were already discussing what to do following weekend. He told me about this mythical, unique place in co. Wicklow – Bell Rock. What’s so unique about it, you say? It is a bolted crag. Yes. You didn’t misread it. Bolts are used to protect the climber. In Ireland.

There aren’t to many places like that in this country. I’d say you can count them on the fingers of one hand. And one of them is just a stone’s throw from where we live!

All the details about location, approach and rock itself as well as the routes can be found on the climbing.ie wiki, so please go there to read more.

I’ll just add that the place is pretty much roadside, however bit sketchy in terms of moving around, so caution should be exercised (there is actually a fixed rope at the base of the crag to allow safe(er) traversing along the base). But even so, when it’s wet – it is very easy to slip there.

Before I go on about our adventure, I’ll just say that I’m rather disappointed in the fact that the new Google Photos service (the descendant of Picassa) doesn’t actually offer photo embedding (that would allow me to link them here, directly to the blog). Because of that I have to change the way I write these blogs (or re-upload all the photos to other hosting server).
I’ve chosen to write couple of words here and then send you, my reader directly to the album, where photos will have descriptions, hopefully giving you idea what’s what.

Anyway – we weren’t planning on climbing much, and realistically speaking from 8 routes out there, we could only do maybe 3 (on a good day), so we decided to meet late, and do 1/2 day out there. It was a good idea, as it was raining most of the morning, pretty much all the way until we got there (around 1pm).

The rock was pretty wet, approach sketchy, but sure it was a good fun. It’s not a place to go back to every week, but definitely something worth going to every now and then.

I invite you now to check out the album here or by clicking on the above photo. Click on individual photos within the album for descriptions.

 

 

Back to The Burren

It’s rather sad that I didn’t do any real outdoor climbing for almost a month. One or two outings to Dalkey, nothing special. I’ve spent most of the time at Awesome Walls, at work or watching Euros.

I was very happy when last week Jirka said he was keen to go to The Burren, co. Clare – a place he hasn’t been climbing  at yet. For me it would be 3rd of 4th visit. This place is pretty special – definitely in top 3 in the country for me.

Most of the action takes place in the Ailladie – 800m long limestone cliff with routes varying in height from 8 to 30m. It really has it all – from easy accessible HS type of warm-ups om the Dancing Ledges, via some classic HVSs (my favourite Great Balls of Fire) on the Boulder Wall, to absolutely stunning, accessible only for the best Extreme graded routes. And for the super brave and bold climbers there are even deep water solo routes.Across the road and a short walk south from Ailladie total beginners can enjoy Ballyryan.

Since I was the only one who actually been to the place before I knew that for this trip we will mainly focus on The Dancing Ledges based climbs, but more about it later.

We’ve agreed for early Saturday morning start, with a planned pit stop in Tullamore to pick up Tereza.

There was another, rather unplanned stop to fix a puncture, but oh well, shit happens.

If you are wondering what is this wagon above – well it’s actually a replacement car, Mazda is currently getting a quick service (that is taking 2 weeks, so maybe not that quick).

Anyway with Team Czechia on board, and all 4 wheels attached,  we were on the way! Luckily it’s relatively short drive  from Tullamore, so we were gearing up by early afternoon.

The plan was simple – climb us much as we can, as the forecast for Sunday was rather gnarly.

Even on Saturday the winds were strong and ocean was rough.

It just made sense to focus on the Dancing Ledges.

Above – Dancing Ledges

We started with LISDOONFAROUT 15m HS 4a,  and  GROUND CONTROL ** 16m VS 4c. Some parts of all the routes (especially cracks) were wet and sipping, adding extra excitement and challenge.

Below – Vertical start of Ground Control.

 

The weather cleared up a bit and we’ve taken some Jirka Insipred posed photos moved further south down the cliff.

 

GENESIS ** 16m HS 4b was next on the agenda.

 

Followed by Derek’s “favorite” route of this section: NUTROCKER ** 15m HVS 5a. I’m sure he regretted not coming with us – finally someone would have shown him how its done!

I must mention here the guy on the left – he’s climbing BONNAN BUI ** 15m VS A fine and popular route. They was a part of a group of 3 Americans from Seattle, who came to Ireland for 2 weeks, to travel the West Coast of Ireland and climb what they can.

Unfortunately he didn’t do enough research on the gear needed in The Burren, and had some  12 cams on him and maybe half a set of stoppers (cams on limestone don’t work that well). He was very frustrated that his cams keeps ‘sliding out’.  It took him 3 attempts and a 5m whipper to finally give up.

Luckily I was able to abseil from the top of our belay and retrieve his gear for him. Well almost all the gear – the nut he took a big fall on will forever be embedded in the crack.

After they were gone I decided to do a quick run through that route as well. I can see why he got stressed out. It’s definitely on the higher end of the VS spectrum.

We were getting hungry and the weather was starting to break. Time to setup the tents and test out that new Kelly Kettle I bought for our upcoming Iceland trip.

Kelly Kettle is really cool. Just make fire in it’s base part (using whatever solid material you can find) and enjoy boiling water, or a cooked meal in minutes!

Now, since there isn’t actually anything other than grass and limestone in The Burren, I had to bring my own wood. The setup is truly great, fast, efficient and leaves no waste. We made tea, cooked rice, soup, and grilled some sausages at the end.

The night fell quickly and it was a rough one. It was very windy and rainy. It was clear that there will be no climbing in the morning. My tent barely survived the night, but for a 30euro Lidl one – I must say I was happy with it.

Unfortunately the Sunday morning was spoiled by the sight of Coast Guard helicopter and rescue boat. When you see these two, as well as couple of ambulances and Guards on the ocean cliffs, it’s never good news.

It was clear that someone fell into the ocean, apparently a woman who was fishing of one of the cliffs. Real sad story. Unfortunately it’s not uncommon in that spot. More in the linked article.

To make most of the day, we quickly packed and decided to drive to Awesome Walls in Dublin.

Definitely a great weekend with a really good company. It only shows that it only takes couple of hours of good weather to make it worthwhile going away for 2 days!