This is Mancer lake in Llanberis, home to such delights as Clippopotomus, and Mancer Direct. As I still had a wetsuit and the weather was really Damp, This seemed like a suitably cavalier way to pass an afternoon. It also gave me an excuse to dig out my flippers, which haven't been used since my honeymoon.
The lake is pretty well equipped with a tunnel to kit up in (it even has a coat hook) and this promontory to enter off. I wasn't quite prepared for quite how deep this puppy is, the waters pretty clear but there's no way to see the bottom. Furthermore the shallows, where they occur, are covered in fluffy algae. This should be repulsive, but bobbing along face down, snorkeling above, it seemed more like a tropical sponge garden. This underwater world was populated by zillions of three spined sticklebacks. I'm fairly sure I saw no other species, (maybe one small broader fish) but no biggies. Certainly nothing like the behemoths a friend saw looming in the depths whilst pootling along the quarry rim one summer...
It was with these beasties in mind that I made my first launch out over the depths, heading for the base of Mancer Direct. I'd spotted some potential deep water soloing here, unfortunately from the water I could see the wall had many vertically aligned razors that would punish a failure unduly.
Much more positive was a scramble round the bay to the left of Mancer. Truly there are some great potential lines here; some are good to go trad lines, others need a declutter. There's even some lines that could value the odd bolt... go see for your self.
Tommorow holds more babysitting, maybe I'll go for some extreme pram action?
No comments:
Post a Comment