Caroline Ciavaldini repeats Olwen (E9), James Pearson repeats Prisoners of the sun (E10) at Rhoscolyn, Wales

During their family holiday in the UK, James Pearson and Caroline Ciavaldini took some time to visit the crag of Rhoscolyn on the island of Anglesey in North Wales.

Both Pearson and Ciavaldini found projects on The Painted Wall, with Pearson's focus directed towards Prisoners of the sun (E10 7a), first ascended by James Taylor in 2021. A notoriously dangerous route, Prisoners has only 3 gear placements throughout the length of the route, with some very run out sections and potential for risky falls onto a ledge and rocks below. Faced with poor conditions on the first day of their visit, Pearson worked the route a little but postponed his lead attempt until day-2, when he was able to send it cleanly.

After making a quick repeat of Easel-EE (E7 6c), Ciavaldini then turned her attention towards Olwen (E9 6c), which shares the same start before heading directly up the sparsely-protected headwall. She checked out the moves and gear from a static rope, sent it first-go on a toprope, then led it cleanly the next day placing all gear on lead. This was the first-female ascent of Olwen, its 3rd ascent overall and the 2nd E9 of Ciavaldini’s career after repeating Chicama at Trearddur Bay in North Wales in 2013.

Following Ciavaldini’s ascent and armed with her beta, Pearson attempted a flash of Olwen, from which he was unfortunate to take a big fall from the last hard move, before climbing the route on his second attempt. E9 has been flashed in the UK once before, namely Something’s Burning at Pembroke by Pearson himself in 2013. Other notable hard trad flashes include Seb Berthe first-go ascent of Le Voyage at Annot last year.

After her ascent, Ciavaldini commented: "I think for both of us, a big part of choosing to do dangerous trad as parents is about knowing when to say ‘no’. We both struggle a little bit and we take a lot more care in our decision making process, than we did before having kids.

James is still leading very bold routes, and obviously choosing to try to flash a dangerous E9 could be perceived, by some, as stupid when you have 2 young children. But, James is a seasoned trad-climber and even if, from the outside, it might seem like his approach to climbing hasn’t changed, from the inside the reality is that he trains much more now, and has a bigger margin for error than he used to have. Some of his former choices were a little bit hazardous, but now he really calculates what he can do and has a deeper understanding of himself and his abilities.

On my side, I’m now climbing routes that I might have refused to lead back in the day. Or maybe in the past I just wasn’t able to make a confident assessment of the risk and the consequences of each potential fall. I was very careful when deciding whether to attempt Olwen or not and wanted to choose to do so for the right reasons. Not for attention, not for sponsors, only for me. I realized that I wanted to lead Olwen because I wanted to prove to myself that I can control my head. The route has a section that is relatively difficult, where you are simply not allowed to fall, and I wanted to figure out how to be in the right mindset in a situation like that. I did it on Gaia for exactly the same reason. I really like this kind of goal now. I am a parent, but I am also Caroline and this kind of choice is about choosing to exist. Not solely as a parent. Thanks to James Taylor for establishing both routes and all the hard work « re »developing the cliff!"

James Pearson and Caroline Ciavaldini are supported by The North Face, Wild Country, Gloryfy and La Sportiva.