The water is cold
The rock is razor sharp
The potential is endless
It took 5 days of waiting for the tides to be good before we were able to get a boat to take us to the limestone islands of Lan Ha Bay, the smaller and less crowed but equally beautiful version of Ha Long Bay.luckily, Deep Water Soloing isn't the only option for climbing in Cat Ba.
Butterfly Valley is quite well developed with a rang of single pitch routes from 5b to 8b+
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| Enter The Dragon 8b |
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| The Lip of Enter The Dragon |
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| ZAP, Rachel and Bessy |
Finally the tides rose and we headed into the bay. We joined Slopony adventures for a pricey day trip as they were unwilling to give us any advise on the area or how to get there on our own (speaking as a climber and not a tourist who wanted to try climbing, I really dislike this company)
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| Zap on the boat ride into lan Ha Bay |
The rock in the bay is extremely beautiful! SHARP as **** but well worth the pain! most of the problems/ routes are unclimbed and still a little dirty. I tried to take a photo of the book to remember what the names and grades were but a Slopony employee told me that was not allowed, so except for one I have no names or grades to share.
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| Rachel finding her groove |
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| getting ready to attempt the FA of Fear and Loathing 8a |
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| The rest before the last crux |
The Route Above is About 14 or 15 meters tall and is actually quite steep.
It was the hardest thing I finished on the whole trip, it finishes right of the bush via a dyno over
a blind roof to two good holds that you have to hit just right!
it was TERRIFYING!!!!
As it turns out there is also some fun beach bouldering in Cat Ba.
We left Cat Ba expecting to be done climbing these next few shots are what happens when you take a climber traveling... Till Next Time
