Gehenna

This is a climb that is coverted as one of the best in the region and the fact it was a jamming line made it appealing. This would be a stuggle. UKC logbooks showed that there had been some attempts recently but non of them were clean leads. It certainly sounded like a classic moors sandbag.

We arrived for our first trip to Beacon Scar. I liked the look of the place, certainly need to go back and do Mongol, Tremor and no doubt franco will want Fat Bastards Last Fling, a bold looking E5.

Looking up at Gehenna, i liked the look of it. It was a proper jamming line, a nicely sized crack with very little either side for the feet. It certainly didn't have the 'feel' of getting on a HVS.

The climb starts with a Niche, which you can arrange protection in before exiting it up and leftways, via some rather awkward moves on shallow jams on slightly damp, green soft sandstone.

The jams kept going for longer than i was expecting and i reached the horizontal break after about 7 or 8 jams (i looked like 2 or 3 jams would have got me far enough from the ground!) I placed some gear here as the run out from the niche was too far for comfort and i was tiring.

Luckily, you can rest on a good jam here and after placing a nut and cam i got my final jam, gastoned the crack and reached into the lovely pockets at the top. A truly great climb. Harder than it looks and it looks hard! but funnily enough HVS doesn't seem too bad for it, perhaps E1.

Another moors classic ticked and i was happy that the climb was a struggle. We didnt have enough time for anything else and i was tired anyway, pleased that i felt i could jam. This inspired me to visit yorkshire grit the next day.