With the continuation of the recent good weather and having effectively finished my degree I have been making the most of the sun. Due to this last week I headed to Baggy Point in North Devon and Bosigran in West Cornwall to go sea cliff climbing.
On Thursday I headed to Baggy Point with my housemate and we went to one of the few slabs that are not restricted due to bird bans. When we got there there was a thick sea mist covering everything but as it was still warm and was forecast to clear we headed to the crag. As we abseiled down to the foot of the climb it was still foggy but as soon as I started climbing it cleared and became a fantastically sunny day. Abseiling into the base of a sea cliff makes the climb much more committing than a climb at a normal crag where you can walk down to the base, combine this with having to climb before the tide comes back in makes it a surreal experience. The section of Baggy Point that we headed to was called The Promontory and had three distinctive cracks going up it. While we were there and due to the calm sea we managed to get three routes done with plenty of time to spare and climbed all of the three cracks, Ben (S 4a), Marion (HS 4b) and In Her Eyes (S 4a). The climbing was just fantastic and Marion is up there in my favorite climbs and I am looking forward to doing a lot more climbing at sea cliffs over the summer.
On Friday I headed down to West Cornwall for the day and went climbing at Bosigran, it was a bit like climbing in the oven due to temperatures of 26 degrees at the car park and an offshore wind which we were sheltered from while climbing, this was made even more challenging by not having my chalk due to having donated it to Simon. We started off on the classic of the crag called Doorpost (HS 4b) before heading up Zig Zag (VS 4c). Both of which were fantastic climbs and I have discovered I much prefer Cornish Granite to Dartmoor’s Granite. Sitting at the belays while Simon climbed looking out along the coast with the sea and the sun was just fantastic, combine this with great thought provoking climbing made for a good day out. After we had finished climbing and had some food we decided to head to Lands End to watch the sun set which was great and it was slightly odd seeing the sun and the moon so close together.
In the past few weeks the weather has been so good and I have had so much free time I worked out that I have done 8 days of outdoor rock climbing in 15 days, as well as a managing to fit in a session of indoor climbing too!
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