I spent an excellent Easter weekend in Pembroke, climbing until I was so tired I could barely pick up my rucksack. We arrived quite late on Friday afternoon, but got stuck in straight away to the perfect steep limestone that the Pembroke seacliff’s have to offer. By Friday evening I had climbed 4 routes including the aptly named ‘Butcher’ an overhanging E3 arête, which gave me my first taste of the trip of being so pumped I could barely lift my arms.
The weather had been forecast to be showery for the whole weekend it turned out to be wall to wall sunshine on Saturday and Sunday with a nice pink face and arms to prove it by Saturday evening. Saturday started with a warm up on the Classic ‘The Arrow’ at St. Govan’s; followed by an impressive lead of ‘Sunlover Direct’ (E3) by Matt, seconding the pitch I was surprised how sustained the climb was, technical arête and wall climbing to draining overhanging ground with almost no let up. Next up was my turn to push myself on ‘Pleasuredome’ (E3), a long pitch where you traverse out onto an overhanging wall above nothing but the sea, gradually becoming more pumped until a few stiff pulls on small holds lead you to a thank god ledge just below the top. After this we were both spent, so headed over to try ‘Lucky Strike’, there was a queue for this; so went to Buckspool Down and climbed a possible new route ‘Direct Finish’ (E1/2) as it started up a route called direct start. We finished the day with ‘Lucky Strike’ a super classic E1 slab just as the sun was setting.
Sunday began with an absail into Trevallen, where we climbed ‘The Hole’ (E1) to warm up with; we then headed to ‘Trevallen Pillar’ (E4) Matt got the first pitch (the crux) and dispatched it with one fall, I led the second (bold) pitch very poorly taking ages. After a brief sunbath we walked over to St Govan’s East and climbed ‘First Blood’ (E2) and then ‘Flesh & Blood'(E2) both good climbs. We finished the day with ‘Front Line’ (HVS) by which point we could only just make upward progress as we were so tired. Monday the weather had changed and we climbed the brilliant ‘Blue Sky’ (VS) before it started raining then commenced the long drive back to Leeds.
Tim