Bobby Gilbert Adventures

A weekend of climbing in the Avon Gorge and eating and drinking in Bristol. Had a great meal at the Thali cafe with Nicole before retiring to my van for the night. Next morning, full of farm shop breakfast, we met up with Benji and set off for the Avon Gorge. I’d done a lot of climbing there while a student at Bath and was ready for another adventure with Nicole.

Unknown Wall is a fantastic multi-pitch route next to the Exploding Galaxy Wall in the Avon Gorge. The VS grade belies the exposure and excitement of steep climbing on slopy, polished, holds where the majority of protection is from old, rusty, pegs. Each move feels that much harder when you really don’t want to contemplate coming off and trusting the gear.

Traversing under the roof at the top felt very exciting on small slopy holds with no clarity that you were going to reach easier ground. I found it quite intimidating. The protection was pegs at the back of the roof. Not bad for the leader, but the second has the disconcerting experience of unclipping the gear just before the hard move, making a big swing on the rope if you come off a certainty.

Belaying from the top I couldn’t see what Nicole was doing and just had to go by the feel of the rope. She was clearly giving it a lot of thought before committing to the move. When she arrived at the top she told me that in the end she gave herself a good talking to, “I’d just do this move if it was on a climbing wall!” and got on with it. Good effort. Scary move. Felt like a big adventure.

We celebrated by trying the beer in a number of pubs in Bristol that evening to the point that we decided we should do another big multi-pitch route next day. Giant’s Cave Buttress, next to the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Not quite such an intimidating outing as the previous day, but still a big route which had it’s moments. The length of the pitches and the noise from the road made it almost impossible to communicate with your partners. Another great expedition.