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Paul, abseiling down from Zelda (HS)
Martin and Paul took a chance on the weather forecast and headed over to regular climbing haunt, Wintour's Leap in the Wye Valley near Chepstow for the first rock climbing trip of 2008. The forecast said their might be light rain early in the morning but that it would be dry after that. Wintour's Leap faces south and the rock dries quickly.
It did rain a bit on the drive over, but when we got there and hiked down to the foot of the day's selected route (Zelda, Hard Severe, about 200 feet in two pitches of 120 and 80 feet each), it had not been raining for a good while and the rock was dry to the touch... though not exactly in prime condition. In fact OK, it was a teeny bit damp still and friction was not at 100% by any means. So we thought and talked it through and, knowing the forecast was for improved conditions as the day went on and that Wintour's Leap dries quickly... we decided to climb.
Martin got racked up and started to lead the first pitch, the plan being that he would lead the whole route as Paul had led it with Martin and Anna seconding back in 2006. The relatively poor friction under foot and "first climb of the year nerves" made the start, up a steep corner, a little nerve racking, but soon Martin was under way, plenty of protection placed and making the first tricky move out of the corner to clip into an old but trusted peg that protects the move around the corner. Nicely clipped into the peg and confidence on the increase, Martin moved out of the corner on to the main face and made the hard pull up onto the next section, continuing by climbing diagonally upwards towards the top of the first pitch, a moderately comfortable ledge with a couple of pegs to belay off. The climbing is not hard but the protection is a little sparse and makes for a somewhat exposed feeling in places.
Weather forecasts. Half way up the 70 foot diagonal, section of the first pitch.... it started to hail. Very hard and for a long time. The termperature had plummetted too and Paul was freezing his *&^% off belaying at the foot of the route. Martin's hands were hammered by the hail and soon all sense of touch had gone... not great when you're climbing! Martin was also testing out a "helmet cam" for the first time, videoing the entire experience. It later transpired that it was so cold that the device had shut down, corrupting all footage on the memory card in the process. Weather forecasts and technology just cannot be trusted! But soon the hail stopped.... only to be replaced by persistent rain. The conditions under foot were getting treacherous but Martin made it to the stance, set up anchors and belayed a very cold Paul as he followed Martin's path, with even less of a sense of touch in his hands.
Paul made it to the stance with no major problems. The next task was to climb pitch 2 though. This involves a very exposed traverse around a "nose" with pretty much no hand holds, relying on balance and "palming" to make the move around the nose where good holds are supposed to materialise. Given the conditions though, we decided to change route and take a more direct route to the top, swapping to adjacent route "Greta" which is the same grade. Martin started to climb but very quickly realised that the route was absolutely treacherous, both wet from the rain and coated with a slippery film caused by the rain washing soil and green stuff out from the upper parts of the route. Martin decided it was a bad idea to continue in the conditions... Paul didn't fancy leading the pitch either (Mr Sensible!) so we decided it was time to call it a day.
Paul rigged an abseil up, with our single 60m rope tied in such a way that Martin could abseil all the way to the ground in one go on a single strand. Paul then pulled the rope back up and rigged the abseil from the pegs/bolts at the stance with the rope passing through both so he could abseil part way down on two strands, anchor himself to a tree, pull the rope through and set up a final, recoverable abseil from the tree to the ground.
So that was the first climb of the year! A bit of an epic, but some sensible decisions were made and wet and cold though it was, it was great to be out climbing. Martin has since invested in double ropes too so we now have twice as much rope available should we need to escape by abseil again in the future :-)