The highball trend continues in the Ogwen Valley. On Saturday Pete Robins climbed a stunning line on a previously untouched wall down and right of the main section of Gallt yr Ogof (i.e. about 250m left of the Smackhead boulder).

The Rock's The Star tackles the line of diagonal layaways and parallel diagonal crack at the left side of the wall, finishing at the ledge on the left.

“Initially it seemed like there were two different lines here but it didn’t climb that way and I ended up using holds both on the left and in the crack. It was harder than I expected and the difficulty was maintained right up to the ledge.”

Explained Pete, before adding:

“There is so much potential for quality highballs like this in North Wales. If you look around there are walls that have been ignored by head pointers because they are too small, but that have also been ignored by the boulderers because they are deemed to be too scary. If you get the pads out and take care with the landings these lines are totally feasible as highball boulder problems.”

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed the rather obvious unclimbed line up the centre of the wall – this remains an obvious, but hard project. The landing is good, but it is still a very bold proposition.

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