Laetitia’s aspirant partner, Alastair crossing Castell Helen to start Lighthouse Arete Direct (5a)
We were super lucky at this year’s CC Aspirant members meet – the weather forecast looked poor. Whilst many headed for the reliability of Tremadog, we chose wisely and went to a sunny and dry (but a little windy) Anglesey to visit Castell Helen. Sea cliff adventure climbing – exciting!
Laetitia and I coincidentally got to climb with two guys both called Alastair. Both were great company!
My partner for the day, Alastair Blackshaw, and I had great fun on a couple of the crag’s exciting routes – True Moments (E2) and Atlantis (E1). We’d wanted to climb more routes but the time used abseiling into the base of the cliff, a few metres above the sea, took a bit longer than usual as we’d only got a 45m abseil rope; the cliff needs at least 55m in a straight drop to reach the sea level ledges. Al did a great job on the traverse pitch of True Moments – he’ll get my support for membership. 😉
Pete’s aspirant, Alastair Blackshaw on Atlantis
After the day’s adventure we raced back to Ynws Ettws just in time for the evening’s party to welcome the aspirant members with a great buffet and lots (!) of wine and beer. 😀
During the party we got the news that Geraldine Taylor had fallen at Gogarth at hit her head and was in hospital! Luckily she turned up back at Ynws a few moments later complete with eight stitches in her scalp and an impressive bloody bandage!!! Ouch – but a lucky escape!
An eventful, and mostly amazing, day!