Dead Wood

Went down once more as i realised after my trip my mid-week weekends would be no more. Roundly disappointed with a lot of aspects. Firstly i explored further and found pretty much nothing, occasional scrappy dirty craglets but not worth cleaning. Also the lovely short hard sit start to the lip and over proved very/too difficult, though still has potential. Tree is very annoying on upper fine grain boulder but i am reluctant to cull it, there is a line here though. Found couple of small lines elsewhere around the crag but generally my expectations have plummeted, for the best probably as i will not be back for over three weeks now.

Damp moss on the rocks nearly gave me lower limb injuries on numerous occasions, as bad as mall hill.

Lough Dan

Climbed a little bit on saturday evening and then again with a foggy head on sunday morning. I'd forgotten how much potential there was in lough dan, though generally lough dan granite is a poor relative of the surrounding valleys, sugary, dirty, occasionally friable. Did Beef to the Heel, waist high lip traverse on nice roof formation. On what i think is the no.9 boulder ( Three Kings in my mind) there were 3 very nice distinct lines, managed the lines on either arete (nice subtle right arete had evidence of cleaning, great moves, left face/arete was nice slap then up to lovely rib) and did a rough clean out of the crack up the face but didn't manage to top out. Nice obvious pure line which should go without great difficulty if the crack continues to provide holds further up as it did in the first section, feet on crystals. Shadow boulder is surprisingly big, i fixated somewhat on a direct line up the left arete which involves somehow pulling over the bulge on opposing sidepulls, to a high left foot and uncoiling spectacularly to throw either for big flat left break or for perfect right hand slot on face. One for the wads.

Back to the Future...

Welcome to the Hyperbowl.

Got back down for an hour to clear some of the "potential" lines out of my imaginings as they were clouding the reality of the place. Rasher line is good clean line as originally thought. The opposite arete has potential but need to cut down a dead tree to access it proper. The downward face's potential is unfortunately pretty much lost to a gnarly multi trunk holly tree. (Evidence of quarrying on this face, one of those shafts for dynamite). Back left arete is a line, slopey either direct or out right but possibly dirty rock. Found the rock terraces surprisingly easy to rearrange and there's a possibility of clearing out underneath this corner for steep problem into mantle/arete, there are holds. 

From here upslope to Angle Grinder a steep lip traverse which should have felt nicer than it did, easy enough. 

Up again to the second of the big three, cleared a bit. Made landing platform for the main line which is nice highball with i suspect the crux at the top. Line also to the right. Micro route to the left of these as ground drops away. Scrubby one mover line on opposite face. 

To the third of the big ones and disappointed for the most part. Very impressive Cracks and general formation but rock quality a little bit shitter than elsewhere. One nice obvious arete line on the right but the landing is a rock ramp. Hard to formulate rest of the rock into climbing terms, landing needs a lot of work. Round on the "face" of this formation is the possibility of a monster dyno if one cuts down a decent sized holly tree. The main section to the right of this is obscured by another unmovable gnarled holly trunk.

Upslope of here is a big dirty face that i cleaned to reveal a lovely easy highball line. Potential of a line to the right but looks hard and relatively blank and needs cleaning and terracing somewhat.

The setting is beautiful. Also on drive in felt that pretty much for a good kilometre before the forestry track there would be some potential on the slopes for more rocks. Worried during gardening of how well sound travels as i can clearly hear farmer in his field opposite, not sure if they would take kindly to my efforts.

Glenmac

Tried the arete line between the cross problem and monkey burger on the dice boulders. Using left heel hook on the left face on crystal can hit and hold lip/change in angle. Need to try again with more skin. Maybe use right crimp on face just below lip. Couldn't do full irish but got steep face. Also felt better on tombstone face.