Llanymynech climbing

Crag: Llanymynech
Routes: The Stringlers (f6b:led), Bah Bah Black Sheep (f6a+:led), Welcome to the Bay variant (f6a:led), Bay Leaf (f5c:sec), Culture Vulture (f5b:sec), Eau de Culture (f5c:led), Culture and Boutique (f6a:sec), No Name (f6a:led*), Culture Cryptic (f5b:sec)
We remembered the 70m rope but due to a mutual misunderstanding we forgot the 15 quickdraws necessary for this venue, only discovering the error at the car park. I'd been with Steve last year and been quite impressed with the Grid Iron wall, but the pitches are very long by the standards of UK sports climbing. Vic and I cobbled together 6 or 7 quickdraws, enough for just the smaller routes - rather annoying. I kicked off with The Stringlers, which takes a vague broken corner via a series of ledges and a couple of tricky moves with a steep crux at the top. Not very good, and not 6b - probably no more than 6a, although the final move over a bulge was hard. Vic backed off the fine 6a+ on the right of the crag: I led this last year and was glad to do so again, it is one of the best sports routes of its grade locally with a steep crux overlap and nice technical wall climbing above. It was getting windy, probably too windy for the bigger routes anyway, so we sought shelter at the Bay Wall over the Welsh border well away from the big walls on the 'Shropshire' side. This is a pretty dreadful crag, insecure and broken. It looks unappealing from below and is even worse in reality. I led a version of Welcome to the Bay, which ended up as a giant traverse, surprisingly long, with dirty and insecure climbing diagonally right up the wall, lowering off before the formal lower-off point which was in a dodgy looking rock scar. I retrieved the gear via the slightly better, more solid, and more logical shallow groove of Bay Leaf. The Cult wall, opposite, is better and more solid: Vic led the two routes at 5b that Steve and I did last year. I led a nice f5c up little positive edges (pulling a big hold off at one point) and we polished off all the routes as the sun finally came out providing some much needed warmth.