Ultra-Punt

There was a fair bit of driving involved last weekend, thankfully it wasn’t me in the hotseat! (cheers Steve) First port of call, after crashing in Ailish’s house and meeting the ducklings and the much maligned gosling, was the rather ethereal crag of Cloonty Pruglush. I say ethereal because everyone’s heard of it but no-one seems to have been there or have any more info. Well we headed up with Kev Power, who along with Andy Thompson, has put a bit of time into developing the place. The crag is totally surreal. It looks like a trench has been cut through the hillside, leaving cliffs at both sides. The outer one holds some interesting single pitch routes, but the meat is at the main face. Its immense. Vertical or slightly overhanging thinly horizontally bedded limestone. The routes (only 4 or 6 I think!) are long sustained and pumpy. Definitely a place to go if stamina is your bag. As you can appreciate, I got spanked.

Saturday evening was a washout. As the other prospective destination (Muckross) would be undoubtedly be mingin, we beat a hasty retreat southwards to the Burren. Sunday was a nice day at Ailladie. Lots of people (beasts) around and the sun was making some brave attempts to shine. Everyone did some cool routes, and I got spanked again and fell off Skywalker. Well “fell off” is a bit generous. Got pumped beneath the crux and slumped on gear. Did the crux and got pumped hanging off something that vaguely resembled a bucket 1 move below the ledge. Couldn’t hang on, gear pulled (unforgivable), and I ended up back at the bottom of the crack. Punt is too forgiving a term to apply to this miserable performance. I think ultra-puntering is the only way to describe it. Bollox.

My puntering was compounded by watching Steve cruise up Moments Of Inertia, then flopping around like a dead fish on a rope while trying to second. Not only that, but when we reached the top there was a certain notable Dalkey-E7 wad topping out on Eliminator. This luminary had apparently “heard of” the looper who used to drive up from Wexford to train in the co-op. It’s a pity I didn’t bring my caving gear along, as at that moment I would have happily crawled down the dankest, most miserable hole in the Burren and stayed there until my face was no longer red enough to rival mars in the annual glowing-red-spherical-object awards. Embarrassed is not the word!

That was the weekend, as Monday was a washout. We did go to check out that roof in Fanore, and with a hefty amount of cleaning there could be some savage steep problems there. In any case is something to do in the burren when its raining. Was up at the Pinnacle on Tuesday evening (apparently the proper name for the new crag on forth mountain) and linked the sitstart and ¾ of the traverse on a wee project I’ve got up there. Its an amazingly sheltered spot as the chalk from my last visit a few weeks ago was still clearly visible after some torrential rain. Even some holds I thought were perma-wet had dried out after relieving them of a load of lichenous shit. Could turn out to be a useful wee crag after all! Plan for the weekend is Luggala on Saturday and Dalkey on Sunday, weather permitting. Keen to get to Dalkey after hearing something interesting about a slab I’d previously dismissed…. And if its all wet, it’ll be to the wall with me to get some of that “stamina” I’ve been hearing so much about lately. All the cool kids have it!

Peace Out

p.s V2’s kick large amounts of posterior. Over and out.