(by Ramona Brand, from IMC Newsletter Autumn 2004)
A weekend climbing in the West.
As Achill is my favourite place in Ireland I have been dying to check out the climbing there for quite a while. This time I convinced a few people to come with me: Annette, Rachel, Aisling, Jessica, James, Moira, Lynn, Kevin, Conor and Celine.
As Annette and I arrived down on Thursday night, we spent the whole of Friday afternoon searching for the climbing crags. We found about 3 crags that could have matched the guide description to certain points before we finally found the right one …
Slievemore
With the rest of the gang arriving Friday night we would head for Slievemore on Saturday. The midges were deadly, the feelings at the end of the day very mixed. I for example really enjoyed our 3 pitch, Vdiff climb but wasn’t mad about the terrible scramble down through a soaking wet gully.
Sunday was going to be the day for the sea cliff “Waterfall Cove”. As it was very windy that day none of us was willing to lead, so we all top-roped one climb – apart from Conor, who would lead if the world was tumbling down. 😉
Waterfall Cove
Half the group left Sunday, but the ones staying spent another great day climbing at “Waterfall Cove” on Monday. This time in good weather conditions and with a relatively calm sea, we were going to climb in 2 groups of 3 people. The climbs turned out to be really challenging, as there was no communication possible between the leaders at the top and the 4 climbers on the wall. An interesting experience for all of us. Everybody agreed that there was loads left for another climbing trip!
Making spaghetti for the dinner
Apart from the climbing we all had a great weekend of fun, surf, music and great craic, – thanks again to everybody.
Going surfing with Slievemore in the background