Weather forecast for today didn’t look particularly good. Max of 10C, no rain, moderate west breeze. Since the quarry is so close to where we live, it’s no brainer for us to go and have a look – worst case scenario – we’ll just pack up and go to The Wall.
So I’ve sent few invites to my regular partners but got mostly ignored (can’t blame then, I would’t be going my self, if not the fact that I can actually see the top of Killiney Hill from my kitchen window). Louis was the only one who was more than happy to join us.
We’ve agreed to meet at 12.30 and do some routes. It’d be a season opening for him – and only 2nd time outdoors on the rock for me – so we’d keep it moderate.
The place was actually packed – mostly due to the fact that IMC just started their annual new members programme, attracting some 50 new bodies – and they were mostly all out today ‘occupying’ almost all popular climbs. This is actually a great thing, as there is nothing better than loads of happy faces (most of them who never climbed real rock before) going at some of the quarry’s best classics.
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However we were first to the Eliminates area of the East Valley starting out with some warm-up routes.
Eliminate A (VD) – I lead – Louis and Monika followed.
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and
Eliminate B Dash (VD) – Louis lead, Monika and I followed.
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In the process we run to some familiar faces – Peter Wood showed up with some new members, as well as Conor O’Connor, among others.
It was getting busy, so we decided to do one last route in that area – a rather intimidating (first protection is at some 9-10m) Up Slide Run (VS, 4c)
I never lead that one before, only seconding it once last season – so it was rather good feeling to have it ticked off now.
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We moved to the West Valley, and as expected it was even busier there. We run into Sinead Rickerby ( I thought Yosemite climbers don’t do Dalkey), who was showing how it’s done on Jameson 10 (VS, 4b).
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We walked around for a bit, until Louis spotted his old nemesis – Dirty Dick – a VS 4b) ‘2 moves wonder’ which defeated him last season. There could be only one decision – we go for it!
Fist jamming on Dirty Dick, VS, 4b.
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Thing to note – Use Blue, not Yellow cam to protect the top. Yellow will just walk out and slide down the rope, as seen on below photo.
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It got quite chilly, luckily Louis didn’t take long and the route was quickly conquered and added to the list of things we never do again. 😉
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