Dalkey Quarry

Dalkey Quarry is located 14 km South East of Dublin city centre on the coast of the Irish Sea. Dalkey Quarry used to be used for extracting granite for building in the 19^th century, quarrying started in 1815 and the rock was used to build the still standing Dún Laoghaire. Now Dalkey is most famous for being one of the most famous crags in Ireland.

Geology

Dalkey Hill is made of granite and so the quarry makes for great climbing, like in Yosemite the rock here is hard and durable. It is good for placing your cams and other such gear. The rock here would have cooled from molten rock under the earth’s surface, allowing large crystals to form, as opposed to above where is would cool quickly and result in small crystals such as in basalt.

 The Climbing

Climbing in the quarry started in 1942 when the first climbs were recorded, many of the routes done then are still challenging climbers today. Since then the quarry has undergone a real spring clean and now there are over 300 climbs (as listed in the current guidebook). Climbs are nearly all single-pitch and range from 10-35 meters. The grades allow for nearly all levels and go up to E7 (6b equivalent). Nearly all the climbs follow cracks up the cliffs.

There are lots of videos on YouTube and Vimeo of Dalkey so check them out! (but the quality of them aren't great!)

 Sources 

http://www.alpinesports.ie/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/d/a/dalkey.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkey_Quarry

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~moroneyk/Images-Large/61427.jpg

Climbing Oman

Up until a few years ago nobody had ever even considered Oman as place that has good rock climbing. Until in early this year (2014) when North Face team athlete Mark Synnnott lead an expedition to the Musandam Peninsula with fellow North Face athletes Alex Honnald and Hazel Findlay. A National Geographic crew lead by photographer Jimmy Chin came along for the trip and made some beautiful images and video. They did some large wall climbs but they also did deep water soloing which is a very exciting new branch of rock climbing. As well as amazing climbing on untouched rock it was a very interesting cultural experience for the team.

The Geology

It is soluble because of its mineral make up, this makes it form the sharp, jagged peaks that are found in the Northern most point of Oman, these peaks that fall directly into the water offer a completely different climbing experience from the huge granite walls of Yosemite that most of them are used to.

If you are interested check out this beautiful video

Sources
Photo http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FCWLtyTmX3o/maxresdefault.jpg

Glendalough

Intro to Glendalough

Glendalough or (Valley of the Two lakes in Irish)  is a very well known valley for many reasons, its Glaciated U-Shaped Valley is studied by many Junior Cert Geography students all around the country, its monastic settlement is famous worldwide, but within the climbing community it is famous for providing some of the best bouldering available in Ireland, there are also rope climbs at Glendalough but we are going to focus mainly on the bouldering.

The Geology

The geology of Glendalough is very interesting, the two main rock types present in Glendalough are Granite and Mica Schist. Granite is the same type of rock that is present in Yosemite Valley which we talked about last week ( http://matthewsblogs98.blogspot.ie/2014/11/climbing-in-yosemite.html ). Granite has very good properties for climbing, it is hard and easy to grip and so it makes for very entertaining boulder problems. The other rock type found in Glendalough is Mica Schist, Mica Schist is a metamorphic rock that has metamorphosed from rocks such as shale and mud stone, although it is a common rock in this area nearly none of the boulders are Mica Schist.

The Climbing 

There are over 100 problems to be attempted in Glendalough and vary in difficulty from easy to desperately hard (the hardest is "Wonderland" 8b) I recommend that if you are planning a bouldering trip to the valley go in Spring or Autumn in order to get the best of the weather while avoiding the tourist rush in Summer.
As far as accommodation for climbers goes, if you are tough enough you will be quite happy with the Irish Mountaineering Club Hut which is located a 40 minute walk from the boulders and will cost you E7.50, but you will need your own sleeping bag, otherwise there are loads of B+Bs in the area if you would like a bit more luxury.

Enjoy the climbing!

By the way if you would like a bit more information on the Geography of Glendalough, I did a field Report on it as a school project,  I got a good mark so check it out!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lfmop9p15ji3kro/GLENDALOUGH%20FIELD%20REPORT.docx?dl=0

Sources 

http://theshortspan.com/features/boulderinginglendalough.htm

http://theshortspan.com/index.php/the-hardest-problems-in-ireland/

http://theshortspan.com/photo/intro/glendalough14.jpg


Video from Chris Rooney on vimeo