Sea Cliff Climbing - Instruction and Guided Climbs
Climbing above the sea is an unique experience that adds an extra edge to rock routes; once experienced it is hard to avoid the allure of sea cliffs and crags such as Gogarth and Pembroke will drag you back time after time for amazing adventures.
Sea cliff climbing can feel more intimidating and is often more committing, but once the extra skills and confidence needed on these routes are mastered the rewards and memories gained from climbing them are all the greater.
The main cliffs are we use for instruction are Gogarth and Rhoscolyn on Anglesey, both of which offer adventure climbing at it's very best and both have all types of routes: tidal or non-tidal, single or multi-pitch.
Rhoscolyn has easier access and feels less intimidating than Gogarth and is a perfect crag to hone the key skills; choosing and constructing safe belays, rope management and placing nut and cam protection.
Gogarth is an amazing crag that tests all of your climbing abilities, both physical and psychological, whilst offering some of the best routes in Britain. We can guide you to the best routes, help you locate the approaches and abseil's, make sure that your belays are safe and away from any objective dangers and then offer advice on the route itself.
Pembroke in South Wales also offers a lot of exceptional climbing, especially in the easier grades and is a great venue for courses where the emphasis is on all-round climbing instruction in a traditional climbing environment.
The course content will be based on individual requirements and experience, but you can be sure that a large proportion of the course will involve climbing on sea cliffs in real situations . The course will normally aim to cover:
- Equipment - choice, care and maintenance - salt water seizes up equipment very fast!
- Objective dangers - thinking ahead, loose rock, testing holds, isolation, topping out and tides / tidal swells
- Choosing a route
- Abseil approaches - more than just a way down, this could be your main belay and perhaps an escape route.
- Communication - the sea drowns out voices very well.
- Protection and in-situ gear
- Security at the base of routes - rogue waves can be an inconvenience, but may also can be dangerous.
- Escape routes and methods - ascending ropes safely
During the course we will also aim to help you improve your general climbing skills as well as those more specific to sea cliff climbing.
You can choose anything from one day private guiding up a classic sea cliff route to a full 5 days course that will aim to give you the confidence and skills to both access and climb your own multi-pitch routes above the sea.
Previous experience: This depends on what you want from the course, but at a minimum you need to be competent seconding routes outdoors i.e. safely tying your own knots, connecting to and un-tying belays. You should also be competent at safely making a abseil approach to a route.
If you want more information on the routes at Gogarth and Rhoscolyn then the Climbers Club have a definitive guide that is a bit out of date, but contains the essentials. GroundUp have a new definitive guide to Gogarth and Rhoscolyn in progress and it should be out at the beginning of October. There is also some info on the Gogarth Wiki
Dates, venues and duration of the Sea Cliff climbing courses are by arrangement and totally customisable. Simply call or email and we'll try to construct a program that works for you.