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 ***

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.

Smugglers Terrace & Goathland Guides

I decided to make a couple of mini guides to Smugglers Terrace and the newly developed stuff at Goathland

Should be accessible from the following links:

Smugglers Terrace - November 2013





The Smugglers Terrace guide is already out of date, with the addition of a few lower grade routes, notably Mackerel Crack MVS 4a *, Chiasso E1 5c * and the Salmon of Doubt HS 4b *.


Goathland - Grey Earths Scar

Enjoy!

The Huntsman

An aesthetic block in beautiful countryside and next to an ancient Roman road, which has three problems on perfect rock. Good stuff. I say three problems, they are all variations on a theme - the theme being traversing from left to right, which is 7a+ and called The Hunted...

Lee 'Betaguides' Robinson added the first line, an obvious traverse on good crimps with big feet which started at a flake crack. Lee then returned with Steve Ramsden, who added the 'extension' which is one move to the left, but does add a little bit to the original traverse. I decided it would be nice to tackle the holds on the lip without getting ones feet up onto the slab, so a lower level traverse was established.


The Huntsman 7a, The Hunted 7a+ and Blood Sport 7a+ from Dave Warburton on Vimeo.

2013 Round Up - Highlights and proving myself wrong...

2013 was a mixed year. I was employed full-time and didn't have access to a wall or convienient bouldering centre, however, once the nights pulled out a bit I was able to get some Moors bouldering in on the way home from work.

Early season highlights saw 7b's, two 7b+ and also a 7c (defo soft done as a crimp problem not a dyno) ticked at a variety of crags such as Clemmitt's, Round Crag and such like. There was also a bit of exploring, with the discovery of the Finkelstones where my 7a+ and 7b+ additions of Labyrinth and Aurora's Encore were particular highlights. I really enjoyed In the Bag (7b+), mainly due to me thinking it was crap with awful holds and not being a good line. Anyway, I totally retract all those statements - it's good!

Pussy Riot SS - 7a **

Early season trad also started in a similar vein with some highballs classics like 'A Reach Too Far', another route that's been on my hit list for far too long! Similarly over the summer we opened up some new routes at Kettle Howe, Hillhouse Nab and so on. Just highballs, but King of the Hill E4 5c *** was exquisite in my opinion.

A couple of harder routes were added too, Franco despatching the difficult and sustained Panda to the Masses E6 6c * at Stoupe Brow and I later added Damascus Waits, which I began to clean just as the U.S were planning to wade into the conflict in the Middle East. It was just the 'project name' but I never got around to changing it and it's stayed as Damascus. Two great routes at Stoupe Brow which added hard and safe to the Moors - the number of these routes is increasing now - which is good!

The Chain - A nice eliminate arete - 6a+

The season ended with me returning to Leeds University. I've been ticking a few routes I never got around to at my first time at the Uni, routes like Blood on the Shamrock E6 6a, Naked Edge E3 5c, Great Santini and Full Throttle, both E4 6a, Daytona Wall E5 6a, Dead Babies E5 6b - all routes i'd fancied doing first time round!

A Plaice Lost in Time - E3 5c 

I finished the season with some bouldering on grit and sandstone, with a few first ascents - I reckon they are from the cleaning and rock removal - at Goathland.

Goathland from Dave Warburton on Vimeo.

Also a couple of additions at Smugglers Terrace, with some more lower grade routes from HS to E3.

I remember in September writing the following blogpost...http://davidwarburton-climbing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/there-are-no-more-crags.html. Anyway, a bit of psyche and poor weather has resulted in some walking around and map scrounging. The current high moors team have gone and found another three crags, which were much more than just 'one climb buttresses' that I believed was all the Moors had left to offer... Oh, I do hope I can remain in the North East following the completion of my masters, hopefully a a second opportunity at YP will result. A lot of crossed digits for the next few months.

Here's to a productive 2014.

Sinn Fein - 6c+ / E4 6b

Goathland

Goathland from Dave Warburton on Vimeo.

Goathland's got some more boulder problems now, based around the pleasant Mallyon Spout valley. Still a bit to do...

I'm sure people will have looked at it, maybe even pottered about. However, that said the cleaning job on a lot of the lines in the video involved the removal of loose rock in holds, so i'll stick my neck out and suggest they are FA's.

Regardless, there's a great circuit here from Font 6a to Font 7a+ which I think sees the better of the climbing in 7a territory. That said, there's a lot of rock left for easier stuff, i'm sure. I'll be back, i've got some stuff I want to do and will continue to develop the lower end of the circuit.

Highlights for me at this series of quarries, craglets and boulders is Mikhail Khodorkovsky SS - 7a** and also a great SS prow arete I called Pussy Riot - 7a** which I'll hopefully add the highball finish to when i'm back from Uni.

Slapewath Quarry

Called Spring Bank Quarry on OS maps, i've seen this quarry every time i've driven to Guisborough down Birkbrow. I assumed its location would mean someone would have been... however, there are no recorded ascents and everyone i've spoken to has 'seen it but never been'...

I wandered up on a drizzly day with my brother and found a better lump of rock than I expected. A handful of lines in a convienient location. Walk up the hillside behind Slapewath adjacent to the Iron-ore works then cut through the pine forest to the crag. Easy peasy. A few grooves, an arete and some walls. Certainly not a 'good' venue but worth developing - maybe for a local, car-less Guisborite...?

All the best... take a saw for the gorse bush that shrouds a couple of the lines.

'Main Quarry...'

Very dirty but a nice compact buttress

bit sandy...

An interesting highball

Good looking route - take the secateurs