Donegal Rock Climbing. Unique Ascent: Donegal Island Adventure

An Sho, with many cunning plans for a wee bit of an adventure over the May Bank holiday weekend, the weather gods were having it large with a spot of low cloud and a hint of wind as the annual Climbfest, kicked off on Cruit Island. There was an excellent turn out with climbers travelling from all over the country to attend. A new wall got developed with routes from VS to E2 and several other new lines recorded on the existing crags of Golfers Crag and Farmhouse Buttress. Once again excellent work by Alan Tees and his team on another well organised Climbfest weekend.

Tyrolean Traverse Film

Donegal Climbfest

Climbfest Camp Fire

On the Monday of the Climbfest as the crowds were beginning to thin in the low laying crowd an altogether smaller team of International players donned the thermals and went in search of vertical pleasure. A team of five from Singapore, and two teams of two from Omagh and Dublin went to play. We split into two sides with one side taking to the sea and the other trying to avoid it. :-) One Side heading to Traderg wall and descended to sea level where Neptune was very much in attendance and with a modicum of white watered rage we made a team ascent of "4 April Fools."

Alas by this time the sea was by now bouncing proper and so we headed to Albatross Zawn to the shelter from Neptunes Ire. The Albatross Zawn provided excellent sheltered rock with all players getting up several routes and Princess Katy taking the yellow jersey on her ascent of a VS jamming crack as the sun came out.

Happy Ladies

Cruit Island rock Climbing

Donegal Sea Kayaking

Cruit Island Rock Climbing

Rope Coiling Lessons

Rock Climbing in the Sun

Topping out in the Sun

Cruit Camp Fire

The morning after the day before and a rapid turn around in the weather, all hill walking plans were abandoned to favour of a Tyrolean Traverse across the Albatross Zawn.

"A Tyrolean Traverse is a method of crossing through free space between two high points on a rope without a hanging cart or cart equivalent." to quote Wikipedia.

The rigging for the a Tyrolean especially one that spans a 50m+ stretch of sea takes a wee while to set up and involves a lot of prior planning if you wish to avoid swimming. :-) An hour or so later and 14 independent anchors, 100m of semi-static, 120m of dynamic, 20+ HMS karabiners and an assortment of softwear, our creation was ready for airtime and so John Mallon and myself took flight to test the fear factor of the beast.

It was now the turn of our international climbing team and so one by one everyone took flight across the zawn. This was a most excellent way to finish a four day stay on Cruit island.

This two day adventure holiday was organised in conjunction with Mark, Donna & John of 4 Elements NI