Martin went to the Wye Valley, near Chepstow for a day's climbing with Anna and Paul, luckily picking the only dry day of the bank holiday weekend. We kicked off with a multipitch route called Zelda, a 180 foot HS (4B/4B) climb which took us about 3 hours in total. Zelda was very satisfying, mostly straightforward but with a feeling of exposure higher up and one particularly unnerving, balancy move around "the nose" near the start of pitch two. We finished off climbing an 80 foot VS/4C called Butterfly, supposedly a two pitch route, but climbed in one go by the three of us. Paul did all the leading and made a fine job of it too.
The day finished perfectly with an excellent curry in Chepstow.
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| The walk in. Anna was very proud of her magic stick. |
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| 300 foot cliffs in the background. Gulp! And the carrier bag contains pasties of course :-) |
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| Paul looking excited. Or something! |
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| The route adjacent to Zelda looked hard! |
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| Paul belaying Anna from the top of the second pitch of Zelda |
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| Anna's made it around the evil nose! Plane sailing to the top now... |
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| Martin on Butterfly |
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| Martin on the trickier top part of Butterfly about to do the layback |
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| Martin doing a great job of *not* retrieving some of Paul's gear! |
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| Finishing Butterfly |
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| Anna on Butterfly |