Caff and Robins: leaders of the pack
James 'Caff' McHaffie carrying out his day job for Plas y Brenin Photo: Si Panton
James ‘Caff’ McHaffie and Pete Robins continue to dominate the North Wales scene, both pulling off a hard repeat each this last week.
Caff got his first F8c with a repeat of Infanticide down at Lower Pen Trwyn. This is the third ascent of the route following on from Pete Robins’ repeat in June. Caff had also recently made a quick repeat of Pete’s Wild Youth F8b/+ link up on the same crag.
When asked what was next, Caff showed he really has got the LPT bug:
“I’ve had a session on The Big Bang [Neil Carson’s unrepeated F9a].”
And when pressed about the infamously sharp and painful holds, he was not fazed by its fierce reputation:
“There is only really one sharp hold, the rest of it is okay.”
At the weekend Pete Robins returned to the Rainbow Slab in the Dinorwig slate quarries and made a successful lead of The Very Big and the Very Small.
Pete had tried the line previously, coming close before a split tip forced him to back off.
In the run up to the publication of the new Llanberis Slate guide there has been discussion about the grade of this Johnny Dawes test piece. Johnny had originally given the route F8c, but it had appeared in the 1992 Slate guide as F8b+, despite not having received a repeat at the time. Steve McClure got the second ascent in 1998, and more recently Caff made the third ascent.
Pete had the following to say on its grade:
“If you had asked me after I did Liquid Ambar last summer, I would have said it was about F8b! But I probably think its F8b+ now. The reason most people fail on it is that they get tired of splitting open their skin and having to not climb for a week, that’s why I stopped.”
