The Road (Amongst the Ruin) E5 6b
Nick Bullock and Streaky Desroy have cleaned up an obvious challenge on their favourite work out crag, The Gallery, which is situated by the A55 cycleway at the Penmaenbach tunnel.
Nick Bullock on the first ascent of The Road (Amongst the Ruin) E5 6b, The Gallery Photo: Streaky Desroy
The Road (Amongst the Ruin) E5 6b takes the obvious diagonal crackline which slashes the main section of the crag from right to left.
The crag was developed in the late 90s as a sport venue, but the best line remained unclimbed. An old peg marked an earlier attempt which was made back in the late 60s by Dave Yates and Ginger Cain.
Ginger recalls that they were not successful:
“If it had gone at about HVS we might have got up it, but it was obviously harder.”
Streaky explained the unique nature of the gear:
“We were clipping bolts on the sport routes that dissect the crack. Aside from that it just swallowed lots and lots of cams, in fact three of the golden dragon cams! There were no nut placements at all as the crack was too parallel. It’s a great route and quite a contrast in feel to the sport routes through which it passes.”
“The route is 35m long and lower off can be achieved with 60m ropes. You will need double ropes and lots of slings to avoid rope drag.”
During re-equipping work earlier this year Colin Struthers (who was one of the original developers of the crag) added a new F6b to the far right of the crag, although be warned, this does have a loose and runout section on it. Check out the Limestone wiki for more details.
