Recent visit of Armen and Arman Ter-Minasyans to Armenia, in Sep 2010, gave one more stimulus to the development of rock climbing and mountaineering in Armenia.
Besides discussing about the perspectives of activating the Federation of "Rock Climbing and Mountaineering of Armenia" and setting up a climbing gym in Yerevan, Armen Ter –Minasyan transferred us 100 bolts donated by Russian Mountaineering Federation to the club Up The Rocks.
Friday Oct 22 morning I decided to leave all my business on the side, to take bro Will’s “bulldog” and go for setting up some sport climbing routes in Yerevan. In Sunday evening 10 sport routes were set up on the rocks from 12m to 20m high: from territory of “Spitak” Resque Center to the rocks below “Yerevan Physics' Institute”. On the most of those rocks they used to climb top-ropeing, there are also few easy trads there. The distance between these sections is about 700m, along Hrazdan gorge.
The six routes of ten are put on very easy relief with the bolts 1m+ far from each other, those are designed for beginners and kids to start lead climbing. The other four routes are like 5.10/11-, to have more fun. Over 60 bolts were put and the remined ones will be used for the new routes in Noravanq canyon.
I would like to say thanks to Vahe Avetisyan and Mkrtich Nazaryan for their support.
The description of the routes and climbing sectors:
Sector “Mngo”, one of the tree sectors below “Spitak” wich is on the bridge side.
1. “Sanasar” 5a, 12m, 4 bolts
2. “Baghdasar” 4c, 12m, 5 bolts
3. “Grasshopper” 5a, 12m, 8 bolts
4. “Snowdrops” 4c, 12m, 8 bolts
Sector “Middle” the middle one of the tree sectors below "Spitak",
5. “Peninsula” 6b+, sport/bouldering, 2 bolts
Sector “Old School”, you can see it’s smoot rocks from “Spitak”
6. “7” 6c ?, 14m, 7 bolts
7. “Blue-gray fun” 6a/+, 14m, 7 bolts
Sector “Physics' wall”, below the perpendicular fence to Hrazdan gorge from the Institute.
8. “Hrazdan” 5a, 13m, 5 bolts
9. “A May love” 5a, 13m 5 bolts
10. “Salty soup” 6a+/b ?, 20m, 8 bolts
