On the way over to Tremadog today, Si and I made a spur of the moment decision to pull up below the little visited crag of Craig y Gesail. I'd not climbed there in quite a few years and he'd never been, so we quickly changed our plan and decided to head up for a look. We had relatively low expectations, and were prepared for overgrown routes and difficult route finding - however we were both very pleasantly surprised and enjoyed a day of quality rock climbing and even did three routes I'd never done before!
It was a pretty murky day and the air was cold, but it remained dry, so we were happy. After climbing what was billed as 'the best route of its grade in Tremadog', we located a very convenient abseil point and did two more routes in the centre of the buttress. All were great climbs, with the stand out feature being the fantastic friction of the rough rock. No slippy polish here!
A slightly more exciting abseil of the top of Castle Crag, landed us right into a jungle of brambles, so I can't exactly recommend the first pitch of 'The Chateau', but the top pitch was fantastic. Very exposed, but with all the gear and good hand holds. You can walk (apparently) to the base of the routes, but abseiling looked the best way unless you like steep scrambling through forest and brambles. From the top, its an easy walk down on the left (as you look at the crag). Great day, with more to go back for!
Craig y Gesail:
- Bramble Buttress VD***
- Clutch VS (4c)**
- Plumbline VS (4c)**
- The Chateau VS (4c)**
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