And still the fierce lines keep coming in Dyffryn Ogwen – it seems that this sprawling, mountainous valley has so much untapped potential for hard bouldering. Provided you have the necessary guns of course – something which Tim Blake has no shortage of.

Tim’s latest conquest, Nine Pinch Nails (8B) is a heinously difficult line tackling the steep wall right of Lily Savage in the Afon Lloer area.

”It was good fun to work out! In terms of difficulty it felt very similar to Hustled sds and Diamond Inspector for me. The holds are pretty bad so you rely on some leg work to get through the crux, a bit like on Hustled. The method I used was pretty spanned but there is a way of doing it for those without gibbon arms at around the same difficulty using some pretty terrible crimps.” said Tim after the ascent.

Craig Davies has made a very cool film of the first ascent; here it is:

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