Our Friday Night Video this week takes us to Inis Mór, the biggest of Ireland's Aran Islands. Steve McClure teams up with Irish legend Ricky Bell for a mission to the wild island. The sheer cliffs are famous for their unrelenting sport routes, but can they succeed in their trad mission? A new film by Ben Pritchard for BMC TV in collaboration Marmot.
Due to epic guidebook reading fail by the team, the amazing new trad route at the end is actually the likely second ascent of "Frame By Frame" - a route Nick Wheeler and I put up 25 years ago. Steve has been notified so hopefully the next guidebook clears that up. Great to see the route again as a movie though.
Looks like some place. How much existing trad is there then? From the video I get the impression the cliffs are just too steep and compact for easier stuff, though nothing wrong with one route every 500m or so...
Climbers who go with family should be sure to include a visit to the fort at Dun Aengus: be aware, though, that the cliff edge formed part of the defence and has not been spoiled by fences, barriers and the like.......
Indeed.I thought the point the video made was that opportunity for trad was limited,but that there is a vast amount of unclimbed rock.Lewis has clean,solid rock,in vast amounts.Classic trad lines.Just a point of information.I did think UKC functioned as a facility for information.
There’s a website that’s pretty easy to find which will give you an idea of what to expect - it’s not all gearless caves but it’s no Pembroke either. If you make the effort to get there you’ll find stuff to do.
>I thought the point the video made was that opportunity for trad was limited, but that there is a vast amount of unclimbed rock. Lewis has clean, solid rock, in vast amounts.
> There’s a website that’s pretty easy to find which will give you an idea of what to expect - it’s not all gearless caves but it’s no Pembroke either. If you make the effort to get there you’ll find stuff to do.
I found your route plus 77 others in the Burren and Aran Islands guide. It's already 11 years old so there must be dozens more routes now. Congrats, by the way, for beating such a distinguished team to the route! By 25 years too!
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Fri Night Vid Ethan Pringle on one of Portugal's Hardest Sport Climb
In this week's Friday Night Video, we follow Ethan Pringle to the 'not-yet-popular' but world-class sport crag of Meio Mango in Portugal. In the film, Ethan attempts one of the country's hardest lines, Filipinos, which was first...