Another brilliant addition to the crags are multi-pitch climbs. I often thought it would make a good venue for this, clearly others shared those thoughts and have added a few longer routes, these are in the lower grades too, so can be enjoyed by relative newcomers to the sport.
So on the opposite side of the headland to sector Voodoo etc, there is a small path leading over the wall, this continues steeply down to the newly developed sectors. Take great care accessing these areas as the path is very exposed! The walk here offer climbs from 4+ upwards on some wonderfully featured limestone. Definitely worth a visit.
Back to sector Voodoo side of the headland, we continued all the way down to the waters edge and geared up here and stashed our bags out of sight. We then traversed (rightwards looking out to sea) over rocky ground with a couple of fixed ropes. About 125m of this fun scrambling leads to a small ledge below 'Catharsis Somital' 4+/5. There is a bolted belay station to the right of this and a name plate at the base of the route. The first pitch is 4+ and gives the best of the climbing on a long pitch of around 33m. A bolted belay station can be found at the top. From here we continued on to the upper pitch, which was slightly more difficult, but alas shorter at only 15m. With a 100m of rope it would be possible to abseil back down the line in one, as our rope is shorter we abseiled in 2 stages.
With a mix of hot sunshine and cooling breeze, waves crashing below us and jet skiers in the bay, this was a memorable climb for all the right reasons. Although this looks like the best of the multi-pitch offerings at the crag, there are more and they will be worth exploring. Watch this space for more info coming soon....
Thanks to Ann and Tricia for joining me on these adventures.
Mark
