Sunday 14 April 2013

Tombstone 7c FA - Ben West


It's only been a few days since getting back from our trip to Switzerland. I haven't had the time to contemplate writing a blog post or going through photos/videos from the trip and now I have more to write about.
A few weeks back a friend Alex mentioned to me that there was an unclimbed project in Cheddar that he had worked, on and off for the last couple of years. I didn't have time to get up there before our trip and after seeing a picture of it I was pretty psyched to get up there and have a play. I didn't have any worked booked in yesterday and have a busy week next week so I thought I could justify another day off. Plus I still feel like i'm in holiday mode. The problems pretty steep and after speaking to Alex about whether it stays dry in the rain, he gave us the go ahead and it was game on.




I met Max in Cheddar this morning. Conditions were far from perfect as half the gorge was in cloud when we arrived. We didn't let that put us off. We precariously negotiated our way up a very wet and muddy shoot gully and across to Wallflower Shelter.   The problem climbs this amazing hanging bloc/tombstone, (hence the name) from the back of the cave, pulls the lip and finishes on an obvious jug. Unfortunately the bottom half of the bloc was pretty damp, well that's an understatement really. It was "Gopping"




After a lot of chalking and brushing we managed to get it into some sort of climbable state. It didn't take too long to warm up and get a sequence. On my first attempt from the ground I dropped the last move and then sent it next go. It didn't take long for Max to board the send train.



Here's the video.



Tombstone 7c FA from Ben West on Vimeo.

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