steve Mcclure -m

A good weekend in Pembroke, maybe one of my top places in the world, I spent a load of time here in my youth. No expectations at all, maybe a bash at ‘Ghost Train’ and then some recovery plodding, easy stuff to help my dodgy finger ligament. Ghost train used to have a reputation, E7 and death if you fall off a monster run out. However, I was psyched and it was clear the only gear was the in-situ threads. I find this easier, no need to hunt for gear. So often trad climbing is about looking for gear rather than climbing. With this route I switched into sport mode and just climbed. A path! Some say F7a+ but I doubt it. The E6 grade is very fair, you wouldn’t want to drop this one at all, but you shouldn’t, but you have to be capable for sure!

We were in a 3, so a few hours to kill allowed me to abseil down Tim Emmet’s new E10. It looked amazing, and very my style. The gear was better than I thought and a spark seemed to light. An hour later I’d done it on a shunt placing the gear and was ready and prepared for a lead. I needed a rest so we went off to do an E3. It took a while, and darkness was close, but no worries. Tomorrow it would be fine.

Unfortunately tomorrow went from about 15degrees to 25degrees and humidity from low to 100%. Pembroke – August – we had forgotten that it’s a hot place, The conditions we had yesterday were awesome. The route is not to be underestimated. A very long run out with the climbing getting harder and harder leads to some gear. It’s maybe 7c+ to there. The gear is a little fiddly to place. If you fall off clipping it you’ll die! If you place it bad and it comes out you’ll die. Then it’s the crux. The whole route is 8a+/b with 7c+ climbing in a death position. Onsight would be horrendous!

So it will have to wait, annoying as it could have gone in 2 hours and now it will probably take 2 years. But not so annoying as I could feel my injuries starting to slightly go away, and most importantly it was just awesome to be out on the rock enjoying the climbing.