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• What a weird weekend! The forecast for Saturday was showers all day so it looked a bit 50/50 but a good few headed up to chance their luck! Jackpot! The sun beamed all day, only breaking after 6pm when the rain finally arrived. A huge thunderstorm raged one the other side of Rathlin for most of the afternoon, which was weird to watch while getting bathed in sunshine. Angus Miller and Geoff Somerville first hit Farrangandoo, Geoff doing Crip Pad Crack Direct, then Angus did Pangur Ban and over to the Prow for Geoff's turn for GBH, Angus for Simple Minds and then Geoff did a Marconi - Midnight Cruiser combo!!! (tired!!!) Meanwhile at the prow 3 Polish folks up from Dublin were cranking away on routes including Fireball, and The Embankment, and over on the main crag Howard Hebblewaithe and partner were on Salango (I think) and no doubt other routes too. All in, a good day considering the doubtful forecast :¬)
• Dave Millar reports: "On Mizen Star there last nite (Thursday 11 June), that first pitch is great, second fairly bold, some tiny gear possible when you move into the groove, nice and sunny evening. Great to get out again."
• The New Routes and the 2nd Ascents pages have been updated, to provide links to all the route descriptions on the Guide page. I'd be very grateful to receive feedback on the 2nd ascents to ensure these are correct.
• George Carelton sent us in a few lines about his recent activities: "Climbed Hurricane on the evening of Thursday 4th with Dave Miller. I led the first pitch and Dave took the direct finish. See what you mean about the finger locks, bomber holds. I found the crux on the first pitch tight and was well pumped by the time I reached the belay. Fantastic route though. Was up again on Sunday 8 June with Peter McConnell, Alfie Conn and Trevor Hartley and we did Lazarus, Pangur Ban, The Black Thief, Curlew -(which could do with a bit of cleaning) and Mongrel Fox. Very few about which was surprising considering how good a day it was."
• Dave Millar got up with Ian Chestnut and Ciaran Kinney for a wee evening session on Tues 2 June. Dave reports: "Ian jumped on Fáth mo Bhuartha and I did The Embankment. There was a couple from Cork at The Prow also who were camping in Murlough Bay, they seemed to have a gud day also. Might head up tomorrow evening again." Over on the main crag Eddie Cooper and Scott Corkin did Blind Pew and Salango.
• Warning! A third of the 2nd pitch of Doldrum has collapsed. Yip, a huge slice has slid out of the route, leaving a bigger chimney and making it look very dangerous. A careful abseil inspection would be required to see if it'd go again, but for now it contains a lot of loose rock. Further details are on the Forum.
• On Mon 1 June, Calvin Torrans and Clare Sheridan did Poor Relation and Raglan Road (first pitch), while Angus Miller and Geoff Somerville did Hurricane (with direct finish) and then for a chuckle top roped Striapach which was a bit interesting. It's a 20m pitch of chimneying with absolutely no protection. The thought of leading that sends a shudder up my spine. Emmet Goulding must have been mad!
• On Sun 31 May, Calvin Torrans has recleaned Reileg which is a great route, very pleasant climbing and spot on for the grade.
• Here's an account of the weekends festivities by Stephen McGowan: " Well there was five of us up myself, Matt Davis, Gunther Dampfhofer, Paul Brennan and Jonathan Redmond. For everyone except myself this was a first trip, so we started off on the prow with myself lead with Matt on The Fence, Paul on Good Morning Judge with Jono and Felix who joined us as well leading up another HVS in the same area with Gunther. We did a couple of other routes here as well, Gunther and Matt were a bit shell-shocked by the head so opted to second for the day. I went on to do Fireball, Felix did Midnight Cruiser and Jono made a good attempt at Fáth Mó Bhurtha but came off once just below the crux.
  
  Then we decided we'd had enough of Mediterranean temperatures so we headed to the main face hoping for something slightly cooler......which didn't work at all. Myself and Matt went up Equinox which looked like it was going to be cooler in it's shady corner but the sun came around and baked us all the same. I set off considering going for a oner....but had 3 draws left when I got to the roof so I cut my losses and instead introduced Matt to his first multi-pitch (which only freaked him out a little bit...honest). Felix and Gunther went for Hells Kitchen but backed off when Felix started to shrivel up as his body ran out of water he could sweat out anymore. Jono took pitch one of Aoife, and Paul the second, they commented on very loose flakes on the first pitch....I know there's always been some but from what they described it might have got worse again. Maybe people should be a bit careful of this for now.
  
  Sunday started with some cracking weather again...myself, Matt and Gunther went up Roaring Meg for a bit of adventure. Matt took the first pitch for his first lead at the head....first pitch is definitely 5a was the opinion though. I ran the last two pitches together just so I could experience some awesome rope drag. Well since I have 60m ropes then I think the pitch lengths for the last two pitches is wrong at 35m+30m. I had under a meter of slack left in the ropes by the time I'd set up the belay (with about 5m's of rope) so I reckon that the middle pitch is about right and the last pitch is closer to 20m long. We belayed for the first pitch on the pedestal with the big flake anchors and with the corner above, to save on rope drag I think going up the corner and onto the start of the ramp before belaying would be advisable. At this point Gunther headed off home and myself and Matt....after much faffing and spectating (ie. shouting "encouragement" at Ricky and Ali on Mizen Star)....headed over to the dark side to get out of the sun. We decided on Burn Up but Angela and a couple of others were on it so we sat around at the bottom waiting. Just as we were about to start off....the midges arrived! Matt fought up the first pitch, more so with the midges than the climbing. Then I took the 2nd pitch with nowhere near enough big gear...making for a very interesting HVS experience....top route, with some quality climbing...we really enjoyed it apart from the midges(I'm still itching).
  
  Mean while Paul and Jono were off avoiding the midges and getting sun burnt again on the prow. Jono ticked off The Fence and The Black Thief and Paul came off 2m's from the top on Midnight Cruiser on flat hold when he got pumped....as he put it "heartbreaking". Paul has about as much stamina as a chihuahua so he really had to fight up there.
  
  Well everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves...pronounced by the messages I've gotten from them all asking when we're heading up again...looks like they're all converted now :¬)"
• "Whatever you do, don't go near the Ballycastle side, it's too hot to climb!" Now that's a phrase that made me chuckle heartily when I was told that over the weekend of 30 May. Yes, it was warm, very warm and The Prow was like an oven, but over on the main crag and at Binnagapple, it was perfect. The crag had loads of climbers up, much to the amazement of hoards of blue rinsers who arrived on mass, poles clacking, cameras clicking and whoops of delight at the climbers doing their thing. Very entertaining. So what did folks get up to? It's impossible to say, but a few of the routes done are as follows: On the Sat 31 May, Eddie Cooper, Dave and Sarah Hamill did Sandpiper and Jolly Roger. Calvin Torrans and Clare Sheridan were on Reileg and Blind Pew but I'm not sure what else. Michael Walsh and Geoff Somerville did Hurriance (with direct finish), The Brasser and Sandpiper. On Sun 31 May, Felix Davey and Geoff Somerville did Titanic, Ocean Boulevard and Run Fast Run Free and Ricky Bell and Ali Wilson did Mizen Star. If you've more news - send it in, or post on the forum.
• Dave Millar and Ian Chestnut made it up for a wee evening session on Wed 27 May catching Railroad and Fireball.
• Printing the guidebook, including all the new routes and updated text is now facilitated properly. Just go to the guide page and then select File-Print from your browser window, or File-Print Preview and it'll print only the text. Print Preview will allow you to only print the pages you need. The entire guide can be printed in about 35 double sided pages.
• A good forecast enticed a few up on Sunday 25 May. It started off a little windier than expected though! Maurish and his girlfriend did The Fence and Driodar na HAille, while Alfie Donnely and Geoff Somerville did Fath Mo Bhuartha, Revival, Fireball and Railroad. Most of the routes had chalk on them, and there were a few more cars about so there's plenty being done in between these posts.
• A new message board has been installed. Please do register and get the chat going again. Link to it here.
• At last the web site is up and running again. It was down there while changing from one host to another, which was needed so that I can get a decent message board going again. Plus, it's the plan to improve the guide book page, by creating better navigation and adding a proper comments facility to it, so that folks can comment directly against each route.
• The weekend of 9, 10, 11 May saw the crag bathed in beaming sunshine and hoards up, making the most of it. Jonny Orr and Paul Swail were on great form, starting off with Paul doing Talking Heads, before Jonny led Primal Scream. That was Jonny's first big step up into the E6 bracket (I think!) and the word is he was smooth and fluent on it. Nice one Jonny. Clare Strawson climbing with Geoff Somerville did Revival, and the 2 variations of Fath Mo Bhuartha. Clare says: "My oh my, this steep crack climbing malarkey is a wee bit tricky, I'm not used to all that steepness compared to the Mournes." Scott Corkin and Eddie Cooper did Equinox and Cuchullainn, while Danny O'Neil did Salango and then Cuchullainn. Geoff says: "Flip Salango is tight, even the first pitch packs a punch, never mind the full on 2nd pitch. Danny cruised it on the lead." Stephen Armstrong and Michael did Cheiften and Fireball, both mad keen to get the most out of this season at Fair Head.
• Revival, Fireball and Midnight Cruiser were cleaned on 3 May. Revival is a good wee HVS at the Prow, which sits between Stone Mad and Curlew, recommended as a thoughtful wee route which is much better than it looks.
• The weather was ace at Fair Head on Saturday, bit windy at the top on the Sunday but it was dry as a bone. Saw a good few about, but not sure what was being done. I headed over to the Prow and cleaned Revival, Fireball and Midnight Cruiser. They're mint. Revival and Fireball had a good few weeds on them and Midnight Cruiser needed a once over after the dirt from Fireball all ended up on it, so I cleaned at the same time. These routes dry extremely fast after rain, so despite the recent showers they're always good for a blast.
• I've been working for a while now on a full online version of the guidebook text and its now available from the guide link in the route news section. All the new routes and amendments to the route descriptions are denoted by RED text so this'll allow you to go through your guide and update it accordingly. The reason for doing this is so that everyone can contribute to improve the text, prior to the production of a new printed guide. Please study the text carefully and send me an email if you spot any errors, however minor, or suggestions. The deliberately simple format makes it very easy to view using an iPhone or similar and I've used the online version myself at the crag, which is very handy indeed. The text is copyrighted to Mountaineering Ireland.
• Check out this check list from Craig Adam and Niall McNair, who visited for 6 days over the 3rd week in April. Iain Small joined them for the weekend. Craig ticked off Equinox and Salango with Craig Hiller doing the top pitch, Blind Pew in 1 pitch, Cuchulainn, Conchubair, Face Value and The Wall of Prey. Niall racked off The Wall of Prey, Above and Beyond, Primal Scream, Paralysed Power, Infidel, Buttons and Bows, The Mask, Hells' Kitchen Arête, The Hustler and flashed A Bad Skin Day after Craig had brushed it and provided some beta. That's the first "beta flash" of an E7 at Fair Head, which just shows the talent that Niall has. Iain did The Mask with Niall and followed with Primal Scream. Craig says: "What a crag, psyched for a return, Fair Head's getting a good report in Scotland this week for sure."
• Angus Miller and Geoff Somerville snatched another mid week day on Wed 22 April, for Conchuabair, Blind Pew and Mizen Star. Geoff says: "Flip I got the full pump on, on the top pitch of Conchuabair, such a fantastic pitch, keeps coming at ya all the way to the top." As they left, George Carleton and Dave Millar arrived for an after work run up Equinox. This was George's first lead on an E2 so he was grinning from ear to ear after that one.
• Julia Howard and Declan Tormey are the first pair up using the opportunity to camp last weekend, reporting “It's handy for the climbing, and a lovely spot to camp too, the weather was brilliant both days, blue skies and sunshine! We climbed  Fáth Mo Bhuartha (twice!),  Railroad, Midnight Cruiser, Good Morning Judge, The Fence and The Black Thief.”

• John McCune and Dayle Smyth were up again on Monday 20 April, enjoying the warmth. John says: "Climbing at fairhead head in sunshine and a T-shirt is really cool and we did Cuchullain, as I hadn't done it yet, the second pitch was awesome! After it and much debate we decided to do Blockbuster. I did the first 2 pitches and Dayle the 3rd. The jamming on the first pitch beat the crap out of me, my hands are in shreads and had to take a rest. The jams just kept going just as hard as the last. The second pitch was pleasant and the last one was out there and fantastic, hard moves in terrific positions. Maybe its just because I'm crap at jamming but this felt way harder than Cuchullain and The Brasser. We'd both give it 3 stars."

• On the Sat, Alfie Donnelly, Scott Corkin and Geoff Somerville hit the Ballycastle side for Girona and Hell's Kitchen. Ricky Bell and Sam Gordon did The Hustler in a one pitch (which I think is a first), which was just possible on 60m ropes. A couple of scottish guys were over too doing Primal Scream, The Wall of Prey and all the quality hard stuff, list of their ticks coming soon. Mark McGladdery & Tim Wilson made it for a flying visit on Saturday with Mark doing Equinox in a oner. It's shaping up to be the route that's most popular as a single pitch for sure - very popular. If you were up send us a few lines, it all helps to build the interest :¬)

• On Friday 17 May Angus Miller and Geoff Somerville made it up, though nearly froze to death on Burn Up. I've came to a conclusion, if the wind is forecasted to be over 15mph, regardless of air temp, it's flipping baltic up there and totally not conducive to a fun days climbing. But not destroyed we then headed over to the Ballycastle which was a bit more sheltered so we followed with Equinox and Run Fast Run Free.

• Waooooo, beaming sunshine finally hit the crag on Sunday 12 April and a good few folks made the most of it. The main crag was sopping wet in the morning so Angus Miller, Alfie Donnely, George Carleton, Geoff Somerville, Alan Blair, Ken Lindsay, Pete Irwin and a pair up from Dublin all ended up at The Prow. Ken, Alan and Pete did a bunch of stuff but I'm not sure what, while Angus and Geoff did Railroad, The Fence (twice), Good Morning Judge, Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Stone Mad, Simple Minds and Contractions. Alfi and George did a similar selection ticking off, Good Morning Judge, Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Simple Minds, Stone Mad and Contractions. Over at Binnagaple, Danny O'Neil and Craig hiller got onto the big stuff doing Hurricane and December. An awesome day, all round :¬)

• Tim Wilson and John Heron headed up on Monday 13 April for Cuchullainn and The Embankment.
• Awesome news in is of a new line of Ricky Bell's named A Big Skin, established last Sunday. At a cool E8 (6c) the line takes the wall to the right of Equinox and goes up to meet and finish up A Bad Skin Day. It's huge, nails hard at 6c and has the sketchy moves 15m above gear, with definite ground fall potential. Ricky - your a wad! Way to go man! Check out the New Routes page for the route description and UK Climbing for some great photos.
• Alas the message board has expired. I'm looking into a replacement but it'll take a few weeks. In the mean time, keep mailing news and pics in. Thanks, Geoff.
• George Carleton made it up on Sunday 6 April with Mike Hassen, and between them they managed to knock out Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Simple Minds, Hells kitchen, The Fence and Good Morning Judge. George says: "Hells Kitchen was a little green but not to bad, with no signs of recent traffic." Over on the small crag, Maurish and his chick did Jungle Line and One Crack Mind, Mariush reporting that they were both very, very wet but good lines.
• Quite the posse hit the crag on April fools day, banking on the forecasted beaming sunshine which didn't quite materialise! Never the less, the crag was bone dry, and conditions were grand. Reports of the pointy end work reads: Scott Corkin led The Black Thief and Good Morning Judge, Angus Miller led Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Alfie Donnely led The Black Thief, The Fence and Stone Mad and Geoff Somerville led Mongrel Fox and The Embankment. Over on the main crag Jonny Parr and Dayle Smyth did Cuchullainn, Titanic and Run Fast Run Free, while John Orr and John McCune did Ocean Boulevard and The Hustler. The John's said The Hustler is good, it's clean face climbing. In the evening George Carleton shunted Fireball and The Fence, then climbed with Dave Millar for him to lead Mongrel Fox. All in a busy day for a Wednesday! This season is shaping up to be massive! Can ya feel the psyche!!!
• Kevin Kilroy, QUBMC secretary sent us in a few lines: "On Sunday 22nd March Dayle Smyth, Daryl Wright and I ventured up to what turned out to be a very windy Prow. We climbed The Black Thief as the usual initiation ceremony to this wonderful place. The strong onshore gale (which was blowing my hexes up around my shoulders) made the route feel a lot easier than VS (even for a first time route at the Head!), but it didn’t take away from the awesome climbing. At that we figured the other side of crag might be more sheltered and bailed for The Small Crag, as word on the website said a couple of routes had been cleaned there of late. We climbed the two cleaned routes, One Crack Mind and Jungle Line and thought they were both brilliant! It’s definitely got us psyched to clean some more lines there; a big thanks to George Carleton for doing these two!"
• The big Scottie, aka Scott Corkin got his inaugural outing of the year at the head on Sat 21 March and although windy and a bit nippy, managed to knock out The Fence, Fáth Mo Bhuartha, The Black Thief, Fireball and Stone Mad with Geoff Somerville. Ciaran Kinney was up too doing his one-man-big-wall-thing to wake his forearms up again. There was a polish couple up too, using siege tactics on The Black Thief; must have been training for K2 or something, as the Mariush had his chick carrying the biggest rucksack you ever saw! Women's lib - you show em Mariush :¬)
• On Paddy's day Dayle Smith and John McCune were up, getting The Brasser, Jolly Roger and December done, which is some going for this early in the season, over on the cold side too. Over at the Ballycastle descent gully, Stephen Armstrong, Ruth McCamley and Geoff Somerville teamed up for The Black Thief, The Fence, Girona and Aoife. It was Ruthie's first day at the head, so she was well pleased.
• 7 psyched climbers headed up to the Prow on Sunday for some proper early season mileage. Ryan McHenry and Anja Jones had a great day with both Ryan and Anja leading Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Anja's first E1 lead at Fair Head so Anja was well chuffed. Ryan led GBH in style before they finished off on The Black Thief. Dave Farquar and Geoff Somerville went for the classic 4, whacking out Fireball, Fáth Mo Bhuartha, Railroad and Midnight Cruiser, then a wee 'one for the road' blast up The Fence to finish off. Meanwhile Ciaran Kinney, Paul McGarrity and Ian Chestnut had no sooner done a route till they went off on a rescue mission. Yip, a rescue mission. Wait to you hear this one. Yesterday, a family were walking their bouncy springer spaniel over near the grey man's path and didn't it only go and fall down a fissure in the rock never to be seen again!!! Despite a full on extraction mission by the Coastguard the poor pooch was wedged so deep and jammed so tight there was nothing they could do and he was left to see if he could find his own way out! The 2nd attempt to get him out by Paul and Ian failed, but not to be beaten they headed up the next day to have another go. Armed with a set of chimney rods and a fishing net, they hoked and poked, proded and strained, but joy of joys they managed to drag the bedraggled thing out battered and bruised, but alive! Way to go guys!
• Hey John McCune, Patrick Parke and Dayle Smyth have been busy as, kicking off the nuttiest idea ever! Climbing with a head torch - by choice!!! in winter!!! Psyched or what! John reports: "Patrick Parke and I got up on 20 Feb and I lead Fireball, and Girona. conditions were cold but dry. Patrick's first time climbing at the head, and I was possibly throwing him in at the deep end, as before that, the hardest he had seconded was a HVS a year ago. But he was suitably impressed by the crag, and loved Girona. Dayle Smyth and I have been doing quite a lot of night climbing as well. Night climbing is awesome, as when we have uni and work during the day we can get up to do routes at night. Generally its been dry and a few gambles have paid off. Climbed Hell's Kitchen on 17th february. This night actually felt almost warm, so strange, as 5 days previously we had been ice climbing in the Mournes. What strange weather we have in this country. We started late and topped out about 1am. On 25th we climbed Equinox. Dayle did the first pitch and I did the second. A fantastic route. Again we started late and got the ropes stuck when we were abing down so we didn't finish until about 2am. On 10 March we got up again after 1 day of sunshine and lots of rain, we went to the Murlough Bay end hoping it would be drier and it was mostly dry. We started much earlier, and almost didn't need head torches as it was perfectly clear and the full moon over the sea gave loads of natural light. We climbed Hurricane with the direct finish. I climbed the first pitch and Dayle the second. I found the first pumpy enough, a good step up from Equinox. The 5c pitch is awesome although a tad damp in places, but thankfully not the crux. Nice one Dayle. Topping out at 10.30 we headed over to Toby Jug. Dayle climbed the first and I climbed the second. Another sweet route thoroughly enjoyed by both of us. The "perfect" jams on the second pitch were a bit damp which added to the excitement. Topped out about 1am just as the forecasted rain was starting. Perfect timing and much fun. Back in bed in Belfast at 3. So that's the story of our Fair Head experience so far this year. Psyched and loving it!!"
• Michael Hassan and George Carleton made it up on 2 March, doing a good few routes at the small crag. Michael led The Sting, Hometown Jam, One crack Mind, and George did Bullrush, Fuscia and Lir's Scoop. Michael says: "It wasn't too damp but the rock was slick - very little in it for feet. The opening move on The Sting is hard - took a few goes to get it. We both felt that Fuscia would maybe merit the grade of Hard Severe. Gotta be more than Severe? maybe it was just the conditions. There were sections of One Crack Mind that were wet and it was slick all the way to the top. It was bloody hard too! Good day though."
• Big Danny O'Neil and Ricky Bell have been up recently; Danny spent a few hours cleaning Thunder Road before leading Burn Up in a oner, despite it not being bone dry. Danny says Thunder Road ain't quite ready yet, but he'll let us know as soon as he's had another chance to work on it. Nice one Danny. Psyched!!!
• Well it's winter and maybe you're twiddling your thumbs. Here's an idea - see if you can dig out a picture for the people page. If you're not on there you should be. New photos just added are of Felix Davey and Louis Malloy.
• George Carleton took advantage of the dry and reasonably mild weather to clean a couple of routes on the much neglected Small Crag, on 3 January. They were One Crack Mind and The Jungle Line, both good routes. George left a metal stake in place near the top of the routes to act as a belay/abseil point, which is very handy indeed. Nice one George!

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