OS ref: 84923 28203
The Bala stones sit below the hillsdie at Cregiau LLwyn Gwern on the north side of the Bala to Dolgellau road. The nearest village is Llanuwchlyn. The crag above the boulders is easily spotted from the road and host a number of good routes up to E4. The large boulders can be seen from the road. A track turns off the main road at the house of Rhyd y Drain which is down and west of the boulder field . Follow the track past the house and park at the point where the track forks left. Pull up as tight as possible on the verge. The main track then continues straight on along an old embankmnet parallel to the main road and over or through a gate (sometimes locked.) After a few meters a sheep trail leads off left across the stream and then contours eastwards up the hillside : the boulder quickly become visible again. About 15 minutes.
There are 6 main boulders the largest being about 8 meters high . Landings are often grassy but a mat or two helps for some of the rockier spots. The rock is solid high friction mountain stone and generally clean. Problems range from 4 to 8a.
Early development was from Martin Crook, Chris Evans and TT. ( first vist 2002 ) Later Owen McShane added some cool lines and most recently Spring 2016 Mike Allday has extensively added to the list of problems adding by far the hardest line at 8a. ( V10)
For more information check out this draft topos by Mike Allday:
bala_boulders
Mike has also done three videos of parts of the circuit we have created so far. They give a good flavour of the circuit and an insight into what inspires Mike to push his climbing to new levels of difficulty.
Martin Crook added an excellent new 6b on 30 March 2016 and this along with the other routes not in the topo will be in the update, coming soon.
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