A Dream of White Horses, Gogarth, North Wales
HVS 5a, 5a, 4c, 4c

April 2008:

This is a legendary route first climbed in August 1968 by Ed Drummond & D Pearce and when I climbed it I had wanted to climb it for some time.

I teamed up with a friend of mine, Andy one evening after running an intro to climbing course at Holyhead Mountain.
We abseiled down to the Wen ledges and climbed the latter half of the 1st pitch as the tide was not low enough to do the start of it. We shared pitches although it didn't really make any difference whether leading or seconding as the route is a monster traverse around the zawn and any fall by leader or second will require a lot of prussiking! The guidebook warns that a fall on the final pitch would leave a climber hanging free 70 metres above the sea!

It can be difficult to find the route if you have not climbed at Gogarth before. Take the main path out towards North Stack and stay on it until it almost reaches the line of power cables. Now turn off left onto a smaller path that leads into a wide gully. You will see a cave on the right hand side and this is a god place to leave rucksacks and gear up. If you walk directly down hill from here you can stand on a small projectory that has great views into the Zawn, from personal experience I would say its better to do this after you have climbed the route because it looks a lot steeper from here! From the cave follow the path that leads off to the left (looking out to sea). The path drops fairly steeply down to the abseil station which has the usual array of tat and can also be backed up with a large cam.
We abseiled down on a single 60m rope that was left in place by a previous party to the Wen ledges.

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