During the week the following began to appear on the UK websites…

It is often wondered what would happen to British trad if it ever spawned a F9a climber who is willing to go for it, way above poor protection and onsight.
‘Nico the Belgian’ made swift onsight progress up Nightmayer E8 6c on Dinas Cromlech. He had already ‘warmed up’ that morning on Resurrection, Right Wall and Lord of the Flies. Gaining the crux top wall of the E8, he fiddled in a small wire. Nick Bullock watched with his jaw open from the top of Left Wall and, slightly concerned, shouted over; “Make sure that wire’s good!”.
“It’z Text-book” came back Nico’s smiling reply and he boosted upward. Just a few feet from the top he was stopped by a baffling and desperate sequence. He slipped from the poor and dirty holds and shot down the whole length of the Cromlech - ripping out several runners and being held by his “Text Book” wire.
His climbing partner ‘Sean the Belgian’ is also destroying our routes in a similar fashion. I accompanied him to Gogarth yesterday and he climbed The Cad on North Stack wall as a warm up. He had a list of routes that he wanted to do that day - the next one was The Bells, The Bells, followed by Positron. We (I) dismissed The Bells and I quickly talked him out of Positron: “How do you fancy climbing 3 pitches of overhanging wet rubble?” I said, knowing that if I was to keep up with him it would have to be on something ’specialist’. “Wow!, we don’t have anything like that in Belgium..” he said as we abbed in to the back of Wen Zawn and attacked Mr Softy…

Sunday, My Birthday, and with another full week of work looming ahead the lads swung by the house for some lunch and to rave about the Welsh climbing. The BMC meet had finished and they were en-route with Adam to Sheffield to play on the grit for the next few days. Turns out Sean took to Gogarth like a duck to water with an onsight of Conan the librarian (E6/7) being his favorite route of the week.
With two weeks left in the UK it’s gonna be interesting to see what else the lads get up to… I’ll update after my week off … i’m going climbing!

*Dave*