Climber September/October 2017

Dinas Mot with the rock
pyramid of The Nose left
of centre and the extensive
Western Wing to the right.
The Eastern Wing can be
seen up and left of the Nose.
Photo: David Simmonite
Gazing up from the Cromlech boulders
lay-by your eyes are instantly drawn to
the compact Nose of Dinas Mot. A
clean bright pyramid of rock around
which the climbing pivots. However,
like a magician’s sleight of hand the
real trick is going on elsewhere. This is
what this article is going to be about, a
celebration of one of the best easy-toaccess
mountain crags in the UK.
Highlighting not only the classics that
get repeated all the time but some of
the more obscure gems that deserve
your attention.
The Mot’s history goes back a long
way as a Bronze Age axe head was
found below it but for climbing it was
1900 when Archer Thompson, famous
for his proclivity towards chimneys found
the outrageous Jammed Boulder Gully
(Mod). This is still used as a descent from
some routes but is worth climbing if you
want an easy scramble or need a quick
adventure on a wet day as the crux is
literally undercover. The boulder in question
is large, about the size of a house,
and it forms an impassable barrier, unless
you head beneath it into the gloom
and weasel your way up to the light
where you are reborn through a narrow
hole. So narrow that if you have a rucksack
on your way will be barred and you
will need to remove it and attach it to
your harness via a long sling to tow it up
the rest of the way. This is guaranteed to
add to the hilarity and adventure of the
whole situation.
The Cracks was the next route,
a fantastic Hard Severe and the first proper
climb on Dinas Mot. Ascended over a
period of years by a variety of people who
progressively freed the aid and straightened
out the line to what it is today.
a fantastic Hard
Severe and the
first proper climb
on Dinas Mot
It is incidentally one of the best sub-VS
routes in North Wales and a popular
outing. Its route finding is devious and
cunning, setting the scene for the routes
on the Nose of Dinas Mot, with some fine
open climbing on the first couple of
pitches leading to an exposed and
difficult final pitch. In this case it is a
well-protected single difficult move to
gain an exposed ledge.
My experience of this route has generally
been trying to solo it, twice I have
made it to that final exposed move only
to become rooted to the ledge, unable to
commit. With each passing second the
gaping abyss gets hungrier and hungrier,
until eventually I have escaped out left
into the descent gully. With a rope on, a
wire right by you and a second close at
hand giving you encouragement the
move is not so bad though.
The Cracks did inspire Colin Kirkus to
go back and free the whole route. Also
turning his attention onto the obvious
central line on crag, Direct Route (VS 5b).
There are few routes as fine as this
anywhere; the hand-traverse on pitch 3
is much photographed due to its
spectacular backdrop. Perhaps it is one
of the iconic images of climbing throughout
the ages. However, the final pitch
with its boulder problem start still troubles
many people given it is a thin and often
damp 5b technical move on a VS climb.
26 Sep–Oct 2017 www.climber.co.uk