Pembroke

  A good weekend in Pembroke left me wondering why I’d only been down once last
year.  Myself and Jim McCormac rushed down Friday night from Llanberis to make
it in time for drinks at St Govans Inn.  We started the Saturday on Pleasure Dome
 where I enjoyed belaying in both the sun and sea spray before heading into Stennis
 Ford to try Bubbly Bosun. It was a bit more serious
than I expected and placing a wire blind halfway up with it being the first
proper protection gave me flashbacks to doing some of the Pete Whillance climbs
in the Lakes as a teenager. I wondered what I was doing there for some minutes
before getting pumped clipping the 2 crap pegs beyond my wire and reversing the
dusty crux 3 or 4 times in the process, deciding wether to commit. Having
extended my wire to stop it flicking out I did eventually commit wishing I’d
worn my smeary boots rather than brand new ones but gaining a good hold, wire
and last tricky moves to the top. It’s amazing how pumped a 7a+/7b can get you
when climbing carefully and reversing some of the hardest moves because of anxiety 
about the unknown. The climb is marginally easier than Souls but with none of
its good protection, I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody less than 5.7 as the
gear would be very tricky to place, it has good climbing, shame it’s not got more gear.
    After doing a brilliant E3 corner in Huntsmans Leap called Strap Up we finished
the day on an E6 I’d been meaning to do for years called Fortune Cookie which
felt like a well protected E5 after the mornings route and gave great wall
climbing.

Stennis Fords fantastic wall

   
The same day a strong North Wales Team were in the middle of a great
holiday. Calum Muskett and Dan McManus were cruising up lots of hard climbs
doing three E6s on the Saturday having done similarly the day previous and doing 
 more hard climbs on the Sunday even managing to finish the holiday on Pat
Littlejohns stunning 2 pitch E6 on St Govans, Crimes of Passion. Worth keeping
an eye on what they get up to this summer. Alex Mason and Gemma Powell were also
on a mission with an ascent of Ghost Train and other tricky routes. The banter
in St Govans was great Saturday night even with Calum and Howard there. Calum
gave his best joke yet:


 “What did the egg say to the boiling water?”


“You’ll have to try your best to get me hard, I just got layed this morning”.

Picnic at the top of Ghost Train with Alex, Gemma and Jim

   On the Sunday we started in Stennis Ford on the Mysteries/Hysteria
combo before repeating a great route of Dave Pickfords called Nightflight which
accesses the Point Blank headwall from the left. About E4 to a great shakeout
jug and good cams before a techy crux on sidepulls with a runout it deserves to
become popular at the E7 grade being about 7b+ rather than the 8a of Point Blank
and considerably nicer than Bubbly Boson. We finished our Sunday with 2 quick
routes on Govans before the prerequisite tea and cream Scones at Ma Westons’ Old
World Café and the dreaded drive back leaving friends who were lucky enough to
be staying an extra day. 
    Thinking about Pembroke on the journey home I realised that I’ve done
more great routes there then on any other crag. With all the new guides coming
out I’ll be down there again soon. Big up to friends doing great deeds on
Wimberry and of course to Jordan who got the 3rd ascent of Rainshadow. Very envious.

The end of a weekend in Ma Westons with Jim, Jenna and Dyer