The new Beacon climbing centre has been up and running for a few months now and I'm sure its owners, Steve and Gill are happy to have the Beacon associated with good dry routes, not that the routes found at the old Beacon located on the side of Mount Doom were poor or damp. The new Beacon offers great routes, bouldering, a great cafe with views and with the Indy Wall on Anglesey there are now 2 very good training facilities in North Wales not including the Mill. Many members of the National Youth Academy and other very good youths are climbing/bouncing around at these venues all the time so I'm expecting to get a rope up lots of climbs I'd like to do next year or for them to put the clips in.
The BMC lead ladder started on the 1st of December and I set 5 of the routes 7a - 8a. Steve Mayers had warned me not to set any sandbags so I was quite liberal with the holds. When Mark Reeves made light work of the 7b my suspicions grew and were later confirmed when Calum got up the 8a very quickly, I was gutted but had some satisfaction when the 8a spat Pete Robins off the last move. They've all had a grade knocked off them now.
As well as the BMC lead ladder climbs I set an 8b. I expect Emma Twyford will be throwing laps on this climb soon before going over to Malham early next year (if it dries out again) to finish off Unjustified, a route she was looking close on early last year. One thing I know for sure about the new beacon 8b is that Pete has no chance on it.
The BMC lead ladder started on the 1st of December and I set 5 of the routes 7a - 8a. Steve Mayers had warned me not to set any sandbags so I was quite liberal with the holds. When Mark Reeves made light work of the 7b my suspicions grew and were later confirmed when Calum got up the 8a very quickly, I was gutted but had some satisfaction when the 8a spat Pete Robins off the last move. They've all had a grade knocked off them now.
As well as the BMC lead ladder climbs I set an 8b. I expect Emma Twyford will be throwing laps on this climb soon before going over to Malham early next year (if it dries out again) to finish off Unjustified, a route she was looking close on early last year. One thing I know for sure about the new beacon 8b is that Pete has no chance on it.
Ian Maxwell and Anthony 'Ginger' Cain at the new Beacon Climbing Centre
Climbing indoors is probably the most sociable type I can think of, with people of all ages and backgrounds under the same roof. Chatting with Anthony 'Ginger' Cain is always an eye opener. Ginger is 82 and owns Llanberis Mountain Arts which has many of Gingers fantastic paintings of crags and mountains in the UK and abroad. He heads to the wall afew times a week. Talking about climbing in the Lakes he said he'd once walked from Ambleside over to Wasdale up to Scafell to climb and walked back again the same day- we've definitely got it easy nowadays. Last week after a chat at the wall he asked if I was heading down the pub later, I replied that I was having a quiet night in and left the wall feeling suitably soft compared with Ginger.
Facilities like the Beacon and Indy are crucial for keen climbers in Wales, especially as 2012 was the 3rd wettest year on record in Wales. Having had to leave my car half a km from my house the other day and wade through floods to get home gives some indication of the levels of rain we've been having. Work recently has consisted of trudging through bogs with maps, compasses and hoods up although myself and Dan Vajzovic did manage to get some climbs done on the Orme and the slate in the mornings before arriving at the Beacon due to downpours. The highlight was Dan seconding Pull My Daisy just before the rain, with Dan having only started climbing this year.
Facilities like the Beacon and Indy are crucial for keen climbers in Wales, especially as 2012 was the 3rd wettest year on record in Wales. Having had to leave my car half a km from my house the other day and wade through floods to get home gives some indication of the levels of rain we've been having. Work recently has consisted of trudging through bogs with maps, compasses and hoods up although myself and Dan Vajzovic did manage to get some climbs done on the Orme and the slate in the mornings before arriving at the Beacon due to downpours. The highlight was Dan seconding Pull My Daisy just before the rain, with Dan having only started climbing this year.
Dan and goats on the Orme
In North Wales it's nearly always possible to find somewhere dry to climb but admittedly I can now name every good gear placement on many of the climbs on Tremadog, Holyhead and the Slate from having done them so many times. In 2008 at Plas Y Brenin I climbed Striptease 15+ times in the summer as one of the driest amenable climbs. Working outdoors nearly every day makes you think about the weather a great deal, effecting where you go, what you do and mental stability.
As part of the contracts for Plas Y Brenin you are expected to give a number of general interest talks in the evening. For the first year I did my talks on climate change, fresh from my environmental science course and slightly concerned that very few people believed human activity could affect the weather. The emphasis of the talk was on the IPCCs (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report and their findings and also the Stern Report as a separate source with similar findings. I also had a small look at Nigel Lawson's 'Great Climate Swindle' which essentially involved him and 1 entomologist going against 99% of scientists saying climate change was caused by Solar Flares and it didn’t effect a certain type of insect. Interestingly a few days after Nigel’s show the Met office put graphs up on their website showing that solar flares couldn’t account for the warming.
As part of the contracts for Plas Y Brenin you are expected to give a number of general interest talks in the evening. For the first year I did my talks on climate change, fresh from my environmental science course and slightly concerned that very few people believed human activity could affect the weather. The emphasis of the talk was on the IPCCs (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report and their findings and also the Stern Report as a separate source with similar findings. I also had a small look at Nigel Lawson's 'Great Climate Swindle' which essentially involved him and 1 entomologist going against 99% of scientists saying climate change was caused by Solar Flares and it didn’t effect a certain type of insect. Interestingly a few days after Nigel’s show the Met office put graphs up on their website showing that solar flares couldn’t account for the warming.
Rhian, Kirsten and Paul in a bog
The general theme of the research was that climate change was very serious with a changing pattern of weather distribution and much higher likelihood of extreme weather events being just 2 of many grim consequences. No scientist would say climate change causing the heavy rain but it's probable that it’s a major factor affecting the weather.
After a year of depressing people I changed my general interest talks to showing exotic climbing destinations like Madagascar and Yosemite. The hypocrisy of my change has not been lost on me. The first talks implied it was morally unacceptable to waste energy willy nilly and the next talks were helping inspire people to blow their energy consumption sky high with international flights. If you are a climber who would like to become a true environmentalist I'd recommend becoming like one of Britain’s most low impact climbers, Chris Doyle who was born on the Orme and is looking unlikely to ever leave it other than for the odd trip to Dyserth down the road.
Being a 'low impact' climber and a climber keen on going on trips abroad are never likely to go hand in hand. If anyone knows how to reconcile the 2 without spending weeks on a yacht please get in touch.
The media seems to have put climate change on a back burner in recent years other than for random reports on 'leaks' that bare no relation to the full findings of the reports. The next few decades are likely to show how accurate the IPCCs predictions are going to be. I see wind farms and solar arrays as a very small price to pay for mitigating some of the effects of climate change and any way that energy consumption can be reduced and offset seems to be a worthwhile venture. There is nothing to lose by doing something although with a possible long flight this year and next I think I'll have to do more than most for it not to be 'business as usual'.
After a year of depressing people I changed my general interest talks to showing exotic climbing destinations like Madagascar and Yosemite. The hypocrisy of my change has not been lost on me. The first talks implied it was morally unacceptable to waste energy willy nilly and the next talks were helping inspire people to blow their energy consumption sky high with international flights. If you are a climber who would like to become a true environmentalist I'd recommend becoming like one of Britain’s most low impact climbers, Chris Doyle who was born on the Orme and is looking unlikely to ever leave it other than for the odd trip to Dyserth down the road.
Being a 'low impact' climber and a climber keen on going on trips abroad are never likely to go hand in hand. If anyone knows how to reconcile the 2 without spending weeks on a yacht please get in touch.
The media seems to have put climate change on a back burner in recent years other than for random reports on 'leaks' that bare no relation to the full findings of the reports. The next few decades are likely to show how accurate the IPCCs predictions are going to be. I see wind farms and solar arrays as a very small price to pay for mitigating some of the effects of climate change and any way that energy consumption can be reduced and offset seems to be a worthwhile venture. There is nothing to lose by doing something although with a possible long flight this year and next I think I'll have to do more than most for it not to be 'business as usual'.
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