Fairhead Climbing Meet 2012

The third Fairhead climbing meet took place over the June bank holiday weekend. I headed up with a few friends early Saturday morning for my first visit to the head. After parking in the extended camp site in Farmer Sean's field we headed for the Ballycastle Descent Gully.

Day 1 was spent on the long single pitch routes on The Prow. I climbed with Daniel, a strong sports climber, on his first tradition climbing outing. After a short refresher on gear placement and anchor building we spent the day climbing some of The Prow 3 star routes. I lead The Fence, 24m VS (4c), and Daniel seconded. Jan and Brian climbed the route after us. We next moved onto The Black Thief, 24m VS (4b), which was Daniel's first tradition lead climb. I seconded the route. 

Jan and Brian paired up for the same route while I set up an anchor at the top of the crag. Daniel top roped GBH, 24m E3 (6a), with ease while I only managed to climb half the route and kept falling on the crux section. At the end of the day rather than walking out by the descent gully we hauled up all our gear by rope to the top of the crag and then exited by climbing Fáth Mo Bhuartha, 24m E1 (5b). The evening ended with a few beers and a talk about mixed winter climbing from Greg Boswell.

Sunday was multi-pitch day. Daniel and I started on Girona, 47m VS (4c, 4c), with Daniel leading the first pitch and I finished on the second pitch. This was a great route with an eye catching chimney move between a large detached block and the main cliff face. While we were on this route Jan and Brian climbed Chieftain, 54m VS (4b, 4b). 

After a break for lunch and listening to several climbers sing the praises of Hell's Kitchen, 66m HVS (5a, 5a), Daniel and I decide to move things up a gear.  I lead the first pitch and had a few moments about 20m into the route but managed to pull myself together and finish the pitch to the hanging belay. Daniel lead the second pitch which had an interesting roof finish with sparse gear placement.

We had a brilliant weekend climbing and I definitely will be planning another visit to Fairhead. More details about the meet can be found on the Fairhead Climbers site along with more photos here.