Its been a long time in the making but Shipwreck cove is officially open! Obviously we have all been climbing here for some time, but after the very successful crowd sourcing Roy Thomas his buddy Dai, Adrian and myself set about bolting up many more climbs. Most of these new routes are in the 5’s and 6’s and offer some fantastic climbing straight of one of Gower’s finest beaches.

Adrian enjoying the fruits of his labour

It had taken around a year for this second spree of development to take place and we should be grateful to the amazing amount of work put in by Dai and Roy in getting us to were we are today. The cove and its adjacent walls house just over 70 routes that have been bolted using Jim tit’s Twizzles, a glue in anchor that should be long lasting.

Mermaid Wall topo from South Wales Mountaineering club Wiki

The topo above is from the great Wiki available on the South Wales Mountaineering club website and has all info about shipwreck cove, also there is the rock fax download which covers the whole of Gower for sport climbing and can be used on your smart phone at the crag!

Topo Link from SWMC WIKI

The previous weekend saw a mass of climbers meet up at the cove, all invited after they pledged there hard earned cash to the bolt fund. Around 80 climbers attended a great day and almost all of the lines saw ascents with many seeing more ascents in a day than they will probably receive over the remainder of the season. Dave Pickford managed to put a new line over the weekend with an amazing looking F8a+ ‘Delta Dagger’ and it was amazing to See Cai Bishop Guest tick his first 8th grade route with his blast up ‘Airshow 8a+’. Whilst all of this was going on TCA, the bouldering guys and girls from bristol who donated a large amount of wonga to the project, provided a great BBQ for the day and some prizes for the guess the grade competition.

Dave Pickford on Delta Dagger 8a+

As if this wasn’t enough Ben West was back in town to finish off the ‘Proj’ as it had become known. This route was actually the first route i bolted in the cove but soon after i bolted the super steep Achilles and that had taken up all of my time, and belayers patience! At the same time Ben had ticked almost all of the routes in the cove (Vernenne is still not done Ben!) So i offered the line to him. He took up the challenge and after some 12 sessions he finally clipped the chain, in doing so South Wales has a new hardest sport route, Helvetia 8C.

Ben on his new 8C

So I have several more routes on my tick list know thanks to all this bolting, all thanks to the Cove!