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Monday 9 May 2016

Talfarach Bouldering

Psyched
Pony Prancing
Talfarach
Sleep of Faith
First day at Talfarach was with Jon and Glyn earlier this year. I’d never been there before, despite having climbed quite a bit at Porth Ysgo over the years. I was amazed by how many good boulders there are just a few hundred metres along the coast from Porth Ysgo. On the first day we went to one of the middle areas where there are a couple of great 7a+s and a 7b+ finger crack traverse. We also climbed a new problem, Pony Prancing, a really cool 6c with a bit of a spicy landing!

Warm up 6b
Two Aretes Syndrome
The next time, was an amazing day with Pete Robbins and James Doc, and I realised how extensive the area is for bouldering. We walked down past the Big Orange and I was blown away. In term of a stunning line and quality of rock this is on a par with Careless Torque and looked like a world class problem. Too hard and too high anyway, so we heading down into the boulder field to check out some classics and hunt for new problems. Solstice, Equinox and Piece of Pith are all superb problems. Surprisingly there were still some mega lines to be done so we added four 2/3* problems; Two Aretes Syndrome (7a+), Like It or Limpet (7b+), Sleep of Faith (6c) and Shrimpmaster (7a)… I still haven’t done Like it or Limpet though. 

Like it or Limpet
...Drenched
So I went back, to try Limpet, but also as I was curious about Big Orange. We tried Limpet, fell off a few times and then got swamped by a wave and had to move landward. I put a rope down Big Orange finally and not knowing anything about it, tried what was to me the most obvious sequence. It turns out that this is a bit different to what Pete had done. It seemed doable, at least worth another go. A fourth visit, with fresher arms and this time I didn’t bother to rinse my skin on the boulders beforehand. On a rope, I could get the crux move using my sequence a bit more than half the time. I tried Pete’s way and it seemed much harder. I didn’t link it on a rope but felt like I had a good chance so set the pads up and went for it. Before I had time to think I was at the top trying to reach out to a loop of rope to grab and swing back to ground.

Big Orange
Big Orange