The Black Canyon

We arrived in the Black knowing three things:

Firstly we would be stung to death by the poison ivy in the horrific decent gullies. It takes little imagination to work out what the SOB gully could stand for.

Secondly we knew that should we made it to the base of the routes, then the run out scary climbing up tottering rock, cut through with Pegmatite bands, would be terminal.

Thirdly, upon the unlikely attainment of the canyon rim again, we would slowly be eaten by the myriads of ticks that would have hitched a ride on our bodys.

In short I was expecting Crag Doris stacked on top of itself 16 times rising out of enormous patch of stinging nettles. (the ticks are in there somewhere) The reality was somewhat different.

It is like being in some enormous mountains, at 830 meters high the cliffs dwarf most height gain on British mountains. That is 100 meters bigger than the height gain from Idwal Cottage to the top of Carnedd Dafyidd and all vertical. From a climbing point of view it gets better, one starts at the top, walks and abseils down a gully to the base and the climbs out. The routes top out on the flat and right by the camp site. It involves no uphill walking at all.

We started out with some warm ups and then sent the mega classic route, The Scenic Cruse. This is the popular variation on The Cruse with all the offwidth taken out! This basically involved a days worth of fantastic climbing up solid well protected rock, the "scary traverse" pitch the americans banged on about seemed a mellow rest compared to all the sustained crack climbing below. Attaining the canyon rim within sight of the warm beer (too cheep to purchase a cooler) was an added bonus.

We both became convinced we had spotted poison ivy, our candidate plants differed. Adamant I was correct and Henry wrong I offered to rub "his" poison ivy plant in my face if he would do the same with mine. Later we met a guide who cleared up our difference, we were both wrong.

In short, no ticks, no poison ivy and no loose holds.