After the long winter season and the recent glorious weather, it was time to put away the axes for another year and dig out the rock shoes. We headed over to Dinas Mot in the Llanberis pass for some good, medium graded multi-pitching, just whats needed to get back into the swing of things.
With the uber classics, 'The Cracks' & 'Direct Route' on the wishlist, we made the short walk in, (missed those over the winter!), and were first at the crag, which today was much quiter than i would have expected.
Dan got to work on The Cracks, and ran pitches 1 and 2 together, pitch 3 was mine and i headed from under the overhanging corner, up and right to be greated by a fantastic but grueling looking corner slab crack. This was the 3rd pitch of, 'Lorraine', it ties up with The Cracks above the corner, but looked that interesting and obvious, i had to begin onwards and upwards. After a 20 minute wrestle, with very few features other than the hand sized crack in a corner i arrived at the next belay. Dan took the next pitch which involved a tricky exposed move, and i then had the honours for the last pitch and the much known about last couple of moves which have seen many people struggle to say the least, fortunatley being tall i could reach the top of the crack and didnt find it too tricky.
Next up was the 3 star, 'Direct Route'. I took the first 2 pitches which i ran together, leaving the most amazing long traverse of The Nose of Dinas Mot. Eveyone who climbs this route MUST do the same, it really does create an amazing pitch of climbing, Dan had the next 2 pitches including the final corner which was the crux and which also was tricky to start. Dan dispatched the last pitch in good time and again is a fantastic pitch and is always interesting.
A great days climbing and another fine day, lets hope it continues......
