McHaffie adds Master’s Crack (E9 7a) to Llanberis quiver

• Monday 13th June 2022

James McHaffie has added Crac yr Meistri (Master's Crack) to the list of Llanberis desperates.

Having been tipped off about the route some time ago, Caff only recently tried the route which is a thin crack in a steep slab located in the back of Nant Peris Quarry in Llanberis Pass.

Describing the route on his Instagram page Caff compared his latest offering to the slab routes at Dyers Point, North Devon and described it as; “A North Wales version of Walk of Life, technically harder but not quite as gnarly a start.”

Crac yr Meistri weighs in at E9 7a with French F8b climbing and comes with a super hard start which comes in from the right. Once through the difficult start the easier middle section, said to be about E6, then leads to a hard finish. Although it has a number of pegs at the start it is mainly protected by leader-placed gear. Caff also used a bouldering pad to cover a “death spike” which threatens serious injury to anyone falling off at the start. McHaffie believes the climbing to be technically harder than that on his 2016 route Dark Religion (E9 7a) on Dinas Mot although not as bold.

Follow Caff via his Instagram page here.