Box of Blood E7 6b, Craig Dorys
Craig Dorys topo
Yesterday Leigh McGinley and Stevie Haston returned to Craig Dorys on the Lleyn Peninsular and climbed another outrageous route. Last year Leigh seconded his old friend Stevie on a series of shocking new routes (such as Bam, Bam E7 6b, Harmony E7 6b/c and Requiem for a Vampire E8 6b), but this time Leigh took the sharp end and pulled off the lead of his life.
The resulting route, Box of Blood E7 6b takes a line on the left side of the infamous Stigmata buttress. It starts up Crucial Condition, climbing its initial loose pillar (nasty, loose 5b territory) and groove to reach some good gear below a large roof. Powerful moves lead through this to reach a hanging groove which turned out to be much harder than it had looked on the ab rope. This section is bold, with only a few dodgy cam placements for comfort.
Eventually the sanctuary of the girdle break is reached; a quick scuttle left for two metres precedes an attack on the fierce headwall. A thin pocketed crack takes runners and marks a rightward swing in the line; if you’re lucky a port hole is gained and shortly after the top.
Leigh cleaned and inspected the line on an ab rope then went for the lead a few weeks ago. On his first attempt he made it right up on to the headwall, but was forced to slump onto the gear in the thin pocketed crack. A week or so later he returned, and with three wires left in place in the top crack, he went for it again. This time the ascent ran more smoothly and Leigh topped out a very happy man.
“This is a massive deal for me. It’s the best new route I’ve ever done, better than Rubble. Stevie reckoned it was worth five stars!”
Enthused Leigh before explaining his preparation for the route:
“I’ve been training hard and lost quite a lot of weight over the last few months. I do pull ups on a 2cm edge; many, many pull ups, plus loads of core strength stuff and sit ups.”
Footnote: the topo shows the line of Night Stalker, a fearsome route that Stevie climbed last autumn.
For those who missed the reports at the time, here are the details:
Night Stalker does battle with the outrageous roof line left of Tonight at Noon and proved to be very powerful, with hard, bouldery moves leading through to juggier, but still very pumpy ground. Two pegs were placed in the roof and Stevie pre-placed two large cams (size 5/6) at the start of the roof and one more mid size cam in the middle of the crux section which is very hard to clip.
Stevie then did what is essentially a pink point ascent, clipping the gear as if on some sort of mutant sport climb. As for the grade, he was loathe to suggest a conventional E number, commenting that it was:
“…like a dynamic boulder problem stuck up in the sky.”
Nonetheless it does seem likely that we are talking French 8-something with a significant danger factor.
