…unless you are a climber, and you go there on a June BH Sunday! Literally everyone we normally see there are either in Donegal, Fair Head, or some other places like Kerry, or Lake District – making Glenda walls today empty like a graveyard after dark.
PG and I decided to take advantage of the situation and do a quick run through some classic VS routes.
It’s amazing how empty the car park is at 8.30am as well (comparing to what is seen later during the day).
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The usual walking, was as usual as it gets.
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We were rather efficient and it didn’t take to long for us to be at the base, where decision time came:
Main Face:
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OR
East wing (Acorn Buttress, Forest Ledge etc):
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| From climbing random 2016 |
Since most of our outings last year focused around Main Face, this time we decided to head up Acorn.
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Padraig started with Provo VS, 4c, I took over the next pitch, and we continued via combination of Forrest Rhapsody, that nobody can name anymore, all the way to Forrest Ledge – funny thing – I found 20euro on the way – another reason to always lead 🙂
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We’ve decided to do couple of climbs from there – PG settled on Celia, 30m VS,4c – I seconded. I must say here that this a true *** pitch. Absolutely amazing crack, very enjoyable. Next time I might do it’s close neighbor – Jackie – seen to the left on below photo (both cracks share some distance, hence today we only did one of them).
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Top has a nice abseiling station, so we quickly got back to the ledge, and I went up Lethe 31m VS, 4c.
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This was another fantastic climb – it’s so easy to forget how great Glendalough climbing is (comparing to mundane Dalkey one move wonders).
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After that we got down to the base of Acorn B, for quick tea.
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PG here in his natural habitat – nurturing a JetBoil!
We did 5 great pitches at this point and decide to call it a day. It was still early, but neither of was wanted to get stuck in traffic trying get out of the Vale with the hordes of walkers, tourists and all other sorts.
And hordes there were. While (as I mentioned before) – there was not a single pair of climbers other than us, there were hundreds of people everywhere else.
Car parks (both, upper and lower {for which they charge now as well}), were overflown, cars where parked absolutely everywhere (incl. roadside, making 2 way traffic almost impossible).
Lesson is – from now on early start is a must – 8am at the upper car park… otherwise you might as well not go at all…
This way or another – the day was great, and this place is probably my favorite Irish Climbing spot of all time.
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| From climbing random 2016 |
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