Am I really that bad at trad climbing? | Grooved Arete, Tryfan

After watching James McHaffie working on the Nesscliffe project (Greatness Wall, E10 7a - sent by Steve McClure in May) we headed off to Wales for an Easter weekend.

And it was BUSY. We had, in our minds, a classic route up Tryfan -Grooved Arete, and planned to meet our scrambling friends at the top. The route was pretty busy, with many people turning up to climb it and deciding to do another route instead. We were lucky enough to get there pretty early and so didn't have to wait so long.

It's a very polished, beautiful multipitch climb with some great moves, but I just didn't have the greatest time on my lead, not realising that Michael had covered pitch 1 and 2, and that I was on the third 50m pitch rather than the second 12m pitch. I stupidly thought that I'd be okay in my bouldering shoes, too! This caused me a lot of problems - namely: the worrrrst foot pain!

Despite this, and running out of water, we had a great day up on Tryfan and we'd just recommend to others to climb Grooved Arete on a weekday OR get up REALLY early to get up there first. It seems like a pretty hard route for VD, compared to some of the other less traveled routes we've done in the Lakes, so it's important to keep that in mind.

I think that, personally, I much prefer the quieter routes where we can go up a mountain with nobody else around. It just feels like more of an adventure.

I hope my mum never watches these videos.

- Rach

Видео Am I really that bad at trad climbing? | Grooved Arete, Tryfan канала Rachel Sarah