dave noden: Moel Y Gest

I love cleaning boulders, its stupid but there you go, for the last few weeks virtually every day off I had has been spent at Moel Y Gest scrubbing lichen and peeling off moss. In the same time period my house hasn't been cleaned at all, well couldn't really as all the brushes were stashed under blocs 20 miles away.

About 2 months ago I first heard rumor of this venue, first from Andy, but he wasn't saying where. Then Simon Panton, who was thinking about giving away knowledge in order to gain positive karma to finally heal his finger. Eventually as it appeared to be becoming the worst kept secret in Wales, Si cracked and spilt the beans.

The following day saw me head down to check it out, after reading the crag description in the Tremadog guide I was fairly blase about the directions after all its at the bottom of a 200ft quarry, how hard could it be? An hour or so later sweating, stumbling and swearing, I finally located the boulders. They looked good, psyche was high so I started cleaning and climbing some of the lines till I ran out of tobacco, chalk and water.

I went back to V12 to collect Jack and some brushes, and we drove down to do some more. It rained, so we took shelter and he cleaned but failed to climb Room For Glue, it was very wet grim and greasy to be fair though. I started trying the groove to the right which became Beatitude's Kiss. This is probably my favorite problem in Wales now, it felt like a 8a+ when I did it but I know it was bad conditions, so I have decided to give it 8a and see what happens in the winter.