Tom Randall reports on the first ascent:
I couldn’t think of a name for the project for ages…. I asked my friends, the wisdom of Twitter and even my daughter (she said call it “Climber”) for inspiration. Then I came across it this morning, whilst looking up derivations of the word “Dinas” or “Dinas Rock”
“Dina fooled me into loving her and toke all I had, but still I can’t get enough of her.
I wish I can stay away from Dina but her mysterious ways are irresistible.”
In those words it was chosen for me. I never was quite sure why I spent so many sessions in the carpark at Dinas sleeping in my van, driving the M1 for hours and hours and putting up with multiple days of ruined climbing just down to the fact that the condensation had set in. The lines above probably sum this up as best as I possibly could.
I think this particular crack project has been one of the biggest struggles for me, due to a combination of factors. The climbing is really quite hard, the conditions on the line are incredibly fickle and the moves are so complicated that each time I would come down, I’d waste at least half a day remembering how to move my body. The route starts up a very strange and steep 2 bolt sport route which is more like climbing a long boulder problem. This then gives you access to an 80 degree finger roof crack. The sequence through the roof is around V10 and involves amazing spins on finger jams, an undercut mono-style move and some funky heel action. All of this has to be stopped in the middle of though, to place two micro nuts, which caused me problems on a few occasions!
Photo: Kim Davies