[Paul B]

PT was ticked yesterday.

Some dirty bastard had taken a shit down the hole so there was turd smeared over the exit chimney.

That and fulmar vomit a day or so earlier have made for an exciting trip.

[Johnny Brown]

Amazing - all you need to do now is a proper choss route and your trad conversion will be complete.

Did you enjoy it then, apart from the shit?

[SA Chris]

For a semi choss route, choose anything unstarred at Pembroke. They are generally pants.

Bummer on the turd, but well doen for the tick.

[BB]

For a semi total choss route, choose anything unstarred at Pembroke in the Wye Valley. They are generally pants fucking shit.

[Paul B]

Amazing - all you need to do now is a proper choss route and your trad conversion will be complete.

Did you enjoy it then, apart from the shit?

It was pretty fun (and TBH would make a good DWS for the first two pitches in calm seas [?], unlike Riders [made sure to make this the first route, thought it was below average).

Choss you say? There are some routes at Gogarth on my ever expanding list that'll fit that bill well and truly.

[Johnny Brown]

I was thinking more the full Cilan/ Dorys tick, though anything on Red Wall or Mousetrap might suffice.

[Paul B]

I might have to recruit a different second for that one.

Forecast has been way off the last few days and the sunny skies haven't materialised. Leaving us with torrential rain and plenty of wet rock.

[Johnny Brown]

Bummer. Dinas rock is worth a look on the way home, though you'll not need the rack.

[Drew]

Shame about the weather. It's lovely, but windy.

[Johnny Brown]

Should be glorious down there by now, and looking good for the rest of the week too for most of Wales and the south-west. Snowdonia's the only place likely to cop some rain, so I'd stay put or head south.

[Paul B]

Should be glorious down there by now, and looking good for the rest of the week too for most of Wales and the south-west. Snowdonia's the only place likely to cop some rain, so I'd stay put or head south.

Thanks for all of the input into this thread.

Basically a good time was had and the weather was mostly fantastic. It got a tad poor at one point when the tides were also being akward but apart from a day trip to tremadog (ouch), all of the time was spent in Pembroke and only one rest day was had.

Highlights include:
Climbing a shit smeared sea cave thing
Being vomitted on by a Fulmar - this still won't come out.
& the finale...

Being taken off belay pulling through the final 6ft of shit rock at the top of Zeppelin due to someone elses communication going via a 'helpful' third party to my belayer.

I also forgot to mention Nat did her first lead on the first bits of Christmas Curry and the final pitch of Vector, so effectively 'One Step...', a good fortnight.

Somehow she's also landed 10 days off starting next Tues so we've got the opportunity to go elsewhere. We were thinking maybe more Pembroke then 4 days or so on Lundy but its the Bank hol weekend so I'm not so sure its a good idea, or if we'll even be able to!

Oh yeah I almost forgot, Scotland is also a possibility honest.

[David S]

Hi Paul
You may struggle with Lundy because accomodation is often booked up a year in advance and they only allow a certain number of people to stay on the island at anyone time. Check out www.lundyisland.co.uk/ to see if anything's available. It can also be the same with the ferry and they like you to book at least a week in advance.

I tried to get on a couple of weeks ago and there were some camping spaces available but we would have to have left the island on the Friday but there wasn't a ferry that day. Which made it a bit pointless unless you have your own boat.

If you do get chance to go do so, it is very good. I'm already booked for next year.

Cheers
David

[Paul B]

I rang the shore office today and the remaning spaces don't leave enough time on the Island. I'm pretty psyched to get there at some point but its not as if I'm running out of stuff to do. I've got some serious Pembroke psyche and plenty I want to tick in North Wales.

I do want to get there mind you and I think we'll try and book for next year possibly.

Cheers for the heads up.

[Paul B]

just thought I'd add a few comments for anyone else looking at this thread; in general the rack I ended up with has been fantastic with one or two (probably obvious) failings.

Phantoms have been fantastic BUT when racking them with larger stuff they have a tendency to go inside the larger biners and generally make a mess.

Racking wires onto wire-gates seems to be a bad idea. I've found that some of the larger sizes, or even a few mediums, have enough weight to open gates when you're rotating the crab etc. (N.B. this wasn't me opening the krabs the wrong way up and I managed to catch most of them with my head anyway).

Mastercams - brilliant

Dragon Cams - can't put my finger on it but I'm not sold. The double axle design leaves me staring at them in placements as they don't look right.

JB is right, two f*cking glaring tricam placements yesterday where nothing else would fit (I didn't have any).

[Bonjoy]

Dragon Cams - can't put my finger on it but I'm not sold. The double axle design leaves me staring at them in placements as they don't look right.

Is this a dislike of double axle cams or just Dragons? I have a set of Camalots, like/use them a lot and to me they look/feel more solid in placements than single axle cams.

[Paul B]

I don't have anything else double-axled to comment on.

My mix is of Rock+Run, WC, Masters and Rock Empire. The WC 1.5 and Purple Dragon are the same-ish size and the WC always just looks better. Its probably just in my (poorly educated trad) head?

[SA Chris]

I must admit I have a distrust of double axle cams. I'm almost certain it's all in my head due to using single axle cams (mostly WC and Metolius) for most of my climbing life, but personally faith in placements is as much in the head as the appliance of SCIENCE, so will probably not stray away from single cams.

[Fiend]

I don't like the look of single axle cams in placements. Smaller cam head sizes for the same expansion range = smaller circumference of cam heads = less metal in contact with rock.

[mrjonathanr]

I don't like the look of single axle cams either. Or the double ones.

For my money they're not a patch on these:

[remus]

I don't like the look of single axle cams either. Or the double ones.

For my money they're not a patch on these:

I dunno, those expanding wedges never gave me any confidence. Too much to go wrong.

[wiain]

Mastercams - brilliant

Double axle cams Cams -  I'm not sold.

  Having used all the major ones fairly recently, I'm not a huge fan of the weaker springs. That said, I still can't decide if it is a big enough problem to stop me switching.