By Adam Fletcher – December 2005

A couple of things from the Brummy division of the club…

For those of the Club who are not aware, there is now a wet weather
retreat for when you have been blown or rained off the peak crags:
it is of course my new home, Creation. We are a wall of over 800m2
(Stow is about 180m2) and have almost everything you can want
(including a bar) on site. I would like to thank all of the club
members for their advice (and ear bashings over grades, Mr
Gilbert!) while I was at Stowmarket: it gave me a huge number of
starting points for the team at Creation (www.creationwall.co.uk).

Now on to the epic:

I have had the privilege of climbing in Croatia twice this year;
the first trip in May gave me my first taste of new routing, whilst
the second took me into ‘epic’ territory.

On the first trip in May we found a limestone crag (with lots of
loose stuff to try to miss my belayer with) where we had a very
successful time putting up two new routes, one at HVDiff and a VS
4a, and we didn’t come away with any injuries. We called the HVDiff
“Yellow spider” as apparently I had one chasing me up half the
route, and the VS got called “Scorpion” as we saw one nearby.

The second trip in late October (I went with a colleague from
Creation, Roni) on the other had did not go nearly as smoothly.

Day One: We fought our way to the crag through trees and brambles,
and then spent the next half an hour finding the bottom of the good
looking crack that we had spied from the car. Having cleared
enough foliage to scramble up the first 30 feet we made a belay
point and then we are off and climbing! About 30 feet up this
wonderful looking crack we hit a loose boulder; no way round it, no
way over it . . . ok hold it (gingerly!). Roni got some gear in
just below it and decided to back off at this point. So, Adam’s
attempt – I got up to the boulder, proved it was loose and backed
off-to the pub! We left the gear in the rock for the following
morning.

Day Two: After an early start (midday) we found ourselves at the
bottom of the crack again, me to start this time. At the boulder
the decision was made to try to shift it off the crag and then
mosey on up: forty minutes of lassoing and shoving the boulder
finally saw it bouncing downward . . . straight at the hire car.
Luckily it missed! Breathing a sigh of relief we were off again .
. .or so we thought. Another 10 feet and I am stuck – I now
officially don’t like laying back on overhanging cracks. Roni’s
turn: but yes, you’ve got it, by now the beer had started to call
so we decide to get the gear back – nip up the HVDiff from May and
abseil down-and then head for an hostelry. We got to the top and
fought through the shrubbery for about 40 minutes, dropped the
ropes where we thought we should be and . . . night fell – like a
lead balloon! Plan B: leave the gear, abseil off (leaving the ropes
because they were jammed) and get the beer! (But only after another
thirty minutes in the brambles and shrubs at the bottom!).

Day Three: The end of the trip is in sight so we needed to retrieve
everything. Another early start – 1pm. We soloed up a Diff with
more trees in it than rock, found the ropes (so far, so good) and
after fighting through the trees again (anyone got a chainsaw)
dropped them over the cliff: this time over the gear (woo hoo!!)
Abseiling down we find what would have been in store for us had we
ventured much further above the boulder- twenty feet of blank wall,
unless you climb British 6c that is. Back on the ground we
collected up our ropes and gear and what was left of our sanity and
headed down to the sea for a swim.

This unfinished project is tentatively called “Lizard” as there was
one watching, and probably laughing at, our struggles.

I would recommend Croatia to anyone who wants a laid-back holiday,
Dubrovnik is stunning though a bit full of tourists; get out onto
the islands, however and there is very little in the form of
organised entertainment so a good book is needed, but it’s great
for just chilling. The food is good, the local beer not bad (avoid
the home brew grappa-the back of my throat never made it to the
plane) and the locals very friendly (they start learning English at
7). Turn up, have fun and get a tan!

Anyone interested in new routing in Croatia is more that welcome to
contact me (rockorang@gmail.com)