Colin is still mad keen - he rang me up the other day to pick my brains about one of the crag xs on the Ormes that he is lining up for development (wonder if this is the same place that Tony saw him?).
a pint for the knowledge?
I moved to Prestatyn in 1978, taking up a teaching post at the High School. Cash was short so local climbing venues were very important and there was a great supply of keen youngsters in the school to get out and explore the crags with: Andy Pollitt, Dave Prendergast, Trevor Hodgson, Anthony Ingham and so forth. The Rowland Edwards 1975 guidebook Climbs on North Wales Limestone was our bible and we did a good job of ticking it and getting rid of the odd point of aid. Andy P swung leads with me on The New Dimension and Moon Shadow in 1980 and soon the pupil became the coach! He moved on to Jerry Moffatt and I linked up with Pete Bailey - a great man to have around on the scary parts of the Ormes.Summer evenings were devoted to Craig y Forwyn and the Ormes, with chips then a pint in the Cottage Loaf to finish off the fun.I'm not one for epics or accidents but in the late 90s some careless footwork just below the first bolt on Firefly led me to inherit a very sore arse, a cracked wrist bone and a large clip-stick!Attached scan from my logbook page in 1992 gives a flavour of those grand days and evenings.
The line was blanker and steeper than anything either of us had tried before, by a long way. It just felt like a waste of time, as i really couldn't see any way it could be climbed, and felt a bit miffed at Andy's over-optimism.
Abseling down the line, i placed some bolts and confirmed my thoughts. It would be extremely hard, but there did look to be just about enough holds to make it climbable. It looked amazing, right up my street and i began to work on it. It took a lot of time to sort the moves out and i spent a good few days on it that year. It was extremely tough, much harder than anything else i had ever done and my attempts carried on into the following year