Rock climbing on North Wales Limestone

The limestone rock climbing found in North Wales is situated on the northern coast around the seaside town of Llandudno and along the A55. This whole area lies in the rain shadow of the Snowdonia Mountains, and it receives more sunshine, enjoys better weather and dries more quickly than either Tremadog or Gogarth.

The Great Ormes near Llandudno is an amazing limestone headland offering a great variety of rock climbing, from trad to sport and easy access roadside crags to committing routes above the sea. The climbing around the crags of Llandudno is very rewarding though the climbing can feel hard for the grade as the routes require strong fingers, power, stamina, excellent footwork and good technique to be successful. 

Lower Pen Trwyn is often described as one of the best sport climbing venues in the UK, with its high concentration of quality routes. There are routes across a wide range of grades from F5+ to F9a, with the harder routes passing through the impressive bulge at the left-hand side of the crag. Lower Pen Trwyn is a tidal crag with a 3-hour access either side of low tide.

Marine Drive is the road out of Llandudno that follows the headland around the coast, circulating the Great Ormes.  Above this road is a tier of limestone that runs for over 2km, with climbable sectors spread along its whole length.  These crags host both excellent sport and trad routes with easy and quick access from the road.  The best crags/sectors are Mayfair Wall, Plumbline Wall, Firefly Wall, Excursion Area, Chain Gang Wall, and Yellow Wall.

However there are no easy routes here with the odd F6a or E1, though most of the routes start from F6c or E3 upwards. It should also be noted that there are access restriction due to the tourists on Marine Drive, with no climbing allowed before 6pm on bank holiday weekends and from Mid-July to 1st week of September, on crags above the road.

There are also a number of crags below Marine Drive that are not affected by the tourist climbing restrictions (including Lower Pen Trwyn).  Again the routes are a combination of sport and trad routes that generally start from F6c or E3.  The exception to this is the excellent Crinkle Crags with many quality routes between Diff and HVS. The approaches to these crags are fairly straight forward, though they are not as extensive as the crags above Marine Drive.  The best crags are Crinkle Crags, Wonder Wall, St. Tudno, and Castell y Gwynt.

Llandudno is home to some of the hardest bouldering in North Wales at Parisella's Cave.  Here there are around 100 problems between Font 6a and Font 8b+, with the majority of these starting from Font 6c.

Within a 15 radius of Colwyn Bay along the A55 highway there are a number of excellent sport crags that offer friendlier climbing to that found around Llandudno. Between junctions 16 and 31 of the A55 there are 17 crags with over 400 routes across a wide range of grades from F2 up to F8’s.  Here there are many easier routes than found around Llandudno, with some of the larger crags being Llanddulas Cave, Castle Inn, Penmaen Head, Penmaenbach Quarry, Trench Wall and The Gallery.

The above information has been extracted from the A55 Sport Climbs Guidebook that in addition to these 10 main sport climbing areas also covers a further 8 smaller crags along the A55 highway.

The definitive guidebook for the area is called the North Wales Limestone Guidebook that covers all the routes around Llandudno and the crags along the A55.  The A55 Sport Climbs Guidebook describes 18 sport climbing crags, and 437 routes between F2 to F8c, close to the A55 between Llanddulas and Penmaenmawr.

The Rockfax North Wales Climbs is a selective guidebook covering the crags around Llandudno, as well as the sport climbing at Castle Inn Quarry, and Penmaen Head just off the A55. The Boulder Britain Guidebook covers the best bouldering problems at Parisella's Cave.

Buy rock climbing, sport climbing and bouldering guidebooks for Llandudno and North Wales limestone from our shop.