Mark Wells » Archive
Map of the Vivian Quarry
Vivian Quarry is the large cut in the hillside opposite Llanberis, it is accessible from the Padarn Country Park. Originally just a deserted slate quarry with a quarry lake where you could park the next to the archway and go for a dive, it now has a small diving centre associated with it. This has brought some benefits like a purpose built access platform for divers to more easily enter and exit the water. This is … Read entire article »
Filed under: Diving
The Welsh Slate Quarries
Slate is a technical rock with most roots not requiring much power though good footwork and finger strength is essential. The gear is a mixture between natural gear and bolts, the natural gear rages from bomb proof to very suspect. This is because slate splits very easily along lines cleavage. The bolts also range in quality from roots that have been re bolted with new resin bolts, to ones who’s bolts have been around and abused … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climbing
Dorothea Quarry – Map
The Dorothea quarry was one of my local dive sites, was used for training or when conditions were not very good at other dive sites. There was always a bit of a mystery with this site as most of the divers I knew had only a limited knowledge of the actual quarry layout. As a bit of a map enthusiast I made it one of my projects to produce a detailed map of the site. The … Read entire article »
Filed under: Diving
Llyn Peninsula Grit (yes! there is some)
The Llyn Peninsula is known for it’s climbing on sea cliffs, but not for grit stone. You can find some at Rhiw (between Aberdaron and Abersoch). This is a small crag that gives an interesting day out, there are no confirmed routs though I believe that everything has been done at one time or other. We found most were solo’s although you might want to top rope some of the problems first. Note: – Access rights … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climbing
Peak District
The grit stone of the Peak District can provide some very hard climbing, with some of the hardest routes in the world found there. But it also can offer some great days out, where you go along the crags with a group of friends, solo climbing 30 to 50 routes in a day with minimal risk and have a lot of fun. Ramshaw Rocks is one of these lines of crags where I did 32 routs … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climbing
Website Update
Hi All As you can see I am changing my web site! I will be first pulling some of content from the old web site, so dates will appear as if they are new, I will look to resolve this later. Please be patient while this it done Thanks, Mark … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Information