So, following a brilliant weekend - just brilliant - I came back to Denmark to catch up and then I was off to Gothenburg for work Tuesday morning. Summertime change means that it's light until 8pm now which means, after work rock is game on!
I phoned Kaspar (resident climber) and he brought rack and yoor to work and we planned to meet up in the early afternoon. Weather was looking a bit sketchy but Bohuslan was indicating better weather than local Gothenburg. A perfect opportunity to test out whether this area has micro climates like your own Isles.
Kaspar was on and we managed to grab the rock mobile and head it towards Bohuslan at 15.30. A bit of traffic already built up so a slightly earlier departure will be optimal in the future.
1 hour an some later we turned off at Munkedal and headed to the "southern crag" of Bohuslan. Place looks excellent in the guide - 40 meter splitter city.
Kasper did well on the navigation and we arrived at the face of the rock with parking at the base - belay from the car sort of job.
Place is called "Høgberget" (high mountain) and it is really impressive - steep and blank and quite intimidating. I am glad we had had a good bit of practice already as it would be the sort of place that could put you off unless you already shared a kinship to the rock.
We searched out the route from the topo - it's a weird crag in a way - it's not in the Bohuslan guide and it's in a edge of the Gothenburg guide. They Gothenburg guide is usually really accurate and really a most excellent guide (the best I have seen actually) but on this crag it's not as clear as reality is. The straight splitters in the topo are actually more broken and its a bit tricky to suss out the routes. Kaspar (fairly novitiate at this game) did very well on spotting the lines and we eventually came to agree on what was what. There are basically to amenable routes 5 and 5+ at the crag (VS and HVS) and then above. These were our aim. The whole crag was a bit seeping unfortunately and the sun was behind clouds and it was pretty nippy. So decision was needed: do we engage or not. As the routes are pinched in amongst harder lines it could a real good place for some undesired epic messing around. A classic "should/should not". Fuk it, let's go for it and a minute later Kaspar had coiled the ropes like a pro. I tied on an started up Olivia 5 (VS). Up a ramp and then up a diedre with an insitu crack line.
A bit wet in places but nothing that couldn't be avoided. Great route with a few tricky spots but excellent gear. Kaspar followed and we rap'd down with the evening still on for it. Next up: Feministisk Alternative 5+ (HVS) and this bad boy looked a bit more gnarly. More steeep, more wet and more manky. No going back though: the fire had been ignited. I started up the sloping full size body crag which in dry condition would make an excellent friction fest, but here it was growwelling slowly upwards in dirt and seepage. It was pretty manky. I liked it. Getting the transition from lying position and up getting a dry handhold on the face and thankfully dry footholds on the lower face was ... exciting. It was a fairly gnarly transition and one that required a bit of care. Gear was ok in dirty cracks so not the most confidence inspiring. I managed the transition and rock was on!
Further up the break/ramp and up to a shelved at the bottom of a vertical steep crack system. Good amount of breaks between with proper shelves to rest it looked like. But, what hadn't been obvious from below: real bad seepage. The cracks seem oddly dry (but manky) but the good positive jugs on the shelves were alll water puddles. Bugger. I had a moment of doubt of the sense in continuation but the yoor took charge - I remembered the willerup.com ascent of Jasper in full wet conditions ( https://flic.kr/p/5bScD ) and I knew it would go.
The thing about wet rock is that to a certain extent it does go. Not full on rain water soaked rock but the average seepage type crack does go. You just need to apply care: you can pull slowly and precisely on a wet edge - chalk like a Beale and most importantly avoid wet for the shoes. Up and up it went and after a fairly intense lead I topped out still with a good bit of evening left. Yoor!
Kaspar followed and although he was not as smitten by the charm of the wetness he did it clean and got up in style. We walked off and got to the rock mobile with two excellent ticks in the bag.
Drive back to Gothenburg and 1 hour later we found ourselves with food (and beer!) still being served at "The Red Lion" - a really good English style pub in the center of this city of rock.