Just a space to share a quick topo for the East Face of Bristly Ridge. I climbed a variation of Great Tower Buttress last Friday, and Giant’s Steps and Grooved Buttress Monday. It’s not the best crag photo being so foreshortened as it was taken on the approach, but should hopefully help folk orientate themselves at least to the starts.

Surprised this hasn’t received more attention over the years with the good path from Bochlwyd giving easy access to a pretty high cliff that I expect comes in reasonably quickly; but be mindful of the turf conditions as it’s seemingly quite vegetated.

I’ve just drawn the lines of the routes that I’m sure of, and received input from the winter ascent team for Skyline Buttress, Photobombers and The Shrew Caravan in White. I’ve only marked up Great Tower Buttress V, 7 (FWA Lee Roberts, Mark Baggy Richards, Lee Roberts, Stu Stanley Dec 2010) in that area for clarity and marked up some easier variation pitches others have taken around the main difficulties of GTB which can drop the grade down to at least IV,5 maybe even a touch easier. It would be good to establish a line of least resistance with a proper write up for the easiest mountaineering route up this secition. A better topo photo I think would be helpful particularly for this area to establish the lines of Rime and Freezin and Knave Variation.

I had a good day with Mark Stevenson on 5th Jan 2026 climbing Giant’s Steps Buttress, taking the original summer line where Dwarf Steps Variation previously traversed left avoiding the crux 4a pitch. We thought it gave a good pitch of technical well protected V,6 climbing, with a precarious move exiting the groove that Mark dispatched. Follow the summer line and description throughout.

After climbing Giant’s Steps Buttress we abbed down the gully and traversed in to the top pitch of Grooved Buttress which gave a good pitch though with wispy turf in places.