Sunday 16 February 2014

Castleton Rigg bouldering and a new addition in the Eastern Moors

A nice sunny day out on some rocks close to home. A few new problems for me and a nice re-acquaintance with some old friends.

Castleton Rigg from Dave Warburton on Vimeo.


The following day, Franco and I returned to another venue soon to find its way into the guidebook. We'd previously developed a clutch of boulder problems in the first quarry bay from Font 5 to 6c+/7a, but the larger 'solo walls' demanded some attention on this warmer, sunny day.

A short clean and removal of any loose holds by Franco, allowed a quick ground up ascent above two alpkit thud pads. An easy start leads to a small overlap, which is turned via some small crimps and a high rock over. The upper wall is scary but steady on hard to spot crimps and ripples. A quality addition which we graded E5 6b *** as the wall is about 7m tall. It isn't really a boulder problem. The rest of the afternoon was spent on a great 6c/7a solo - a future E6/7?

(Edit: Franco returned 4 days later and polished off this class bit of movement, a fine addition climbing direct up the 'groove' ever so slightly left of centre of the wall. Excellent.)

Ivanhoe - E5 6b ***

Sunday 2 February 2014

Another Goathland addition

This crag has turned out to be a very useful find. Super fast drying, which is an absolute must at the moment! With Franco home from Germany and Matt Ferrier and I returning from University for the weekend, we got a good afternoon in at Grey Earths Scar trying to understand the remaining projects. After an hour or so warming up and attempting The Prow Project, which Franco is certainly closer to getting than me, we turned our attention to the other project I had in mind.



The imposing, steep 'ships bow' arete is found a little way down stream from the big angular prow and I thought it was going to provide an E6 6c / Font 7a+/b. After a bit of a clean and chalk, we struggled to negotiate the top section for fear of falling off and not stopping til the river was met. However, eventually a final lunge for the top was unlocked and overall a grade of E5 6b / Font 6c was decided upon. Absolutely top line, great climbing and an excellent highball above some pads which certainly keeps its spice.

Goathland, quite the crag.