Some new, Some old

It has been a while since my last post. In this time I have been attempting to climb as much as I can to get some mileage in preparation for the summer. Over this time I have also been doing my final exams, which are a lot less stressful than people might make you think. With almost all of the work which goes towards my final degree already handed in the pressure has been kinda off really. Despite this I have spent much of my time in Edinburgh, making lots of trips to the citys local crags.
Most of my time has been spent at Agassiz Rock, a small but steep crag composed of Pyroxene Andesite in Blackford Glen. Agassiz rock is a pretty famous locality thanks to the Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz who interpreted the striations on the rock surface as being created by ice. If you are interested you can read about it here. After a bit of time working out how to use the Scottishclimbs wiki grid topo of this crag I managed to climb lots of problems here. My best effort has been the Low Traverse, weighing in at font 7b. This is quite long and probably deserves something like a 7c sport grade too. My usual warm up here is the problem Last Gasp, which is a long pumpy font 7a, which also gets a 7c+ sport grade apparently! So maybe the training is paying off.

Craig at Agassiz

Further down the glen from Agassiz Rock is Corbies crag, the neck of an extinct volcano and of the same unit which Agassiz Rock is composed of. I had never climbed here despite often walking past it to climb at Agassiz. There are a few easy routes which make for a nice way back to the flat from the glen. I climbed a very nice Mod called Retromingent Ridge, which I can highly recommend, and a Diff which follows a gorse filled gully, called Sunny Scoop, which I can't recommend.
Other local Edinburgh adventures include a quick trip to Traprain Law, where I climbed a few routes I hadn't done before with Elaine, and a couple of trips to the Salisbury crags, where I also managed a few new things.

Elaine on Great Corner Direct, Traprain Law

Further afield I made a quick evening trip to Oxen Wood in Northumberland, which is only really worth an evening trip. There isn't anything very hard here, although there is a nice font 6c, called Oxen Wood Traverse, which is probably worth seeking out.

Oxen Wood

Oxen Wood Traverse

Again in Northumberland I made a very unsuccessful trip to Bowden where I managed to climb a grad total of nothing, and a wet afternoon at Heckley, near Alnwick, where I managed a few nice things. Heckley is a bit of a strange crag as there was a f5+ which I spent a while trying to do but to no avail, but then I managed to flash a few 6c's. I can only think that some holds must have broken. The dead rabbit at the base of it added to the atmosphere.

Greg on Staggered, Bowden

Andrew on Vienna, Bowden

Dark Times at Bowden

Heckley in the Rain

Further south in Yorkshire I had an afternoon soloing at Scot Crags in Scugdale, where I managed to climb 60 routes! Most of the routes I climbed were between HS and HVS, however I did also tick a few E numbers, including an E4 which you really wouldn't want to fall off!

The Prow, Scugdale

So yes that has been my life recently. Hopefully I will be able to make some bigger trips soon which merit their own post, so you don't have to trawl through an essay to see what I've been up to!
Also here is a song I like: Metric-Waves

Taboo

Recently the Edinburgh climbing scene has been up in turmoil after some inconsiderate soul desecrated one of our great dolerite crags....
Edinburgh crag gets new lease of life after climber invests their own money bolting forgotten climbs....

Bolting mayhem

These two sentences sum up either side of an argument which has been raging on UKC and in other groups. The cause of this argument is the recent bolting of 4 previously traditional climbs and the equipping of 4 other lines. The new routes are, as far as I can tell, thought to be fair game, but the retro bolting isn't so universally agreed upon. The routes in question are Pettifers Wall (E4), Slow Strain (E2) and Wally 2 and 3 (both E4).

Tom on Slow Strain

If all of these were popular trad routes I would agree with the anti bolting crowd. I have looked at UKC and Pettifers Wall has logged once on lead pre-bolts, but since the bolts have been added it has been climbed at least 10 times. Slow Strain like wise has seen a big increase in number of ticks since bolting. Wally 2 and 3 I don't agree with so much. They are on the more popular trad part of the crag so maybe they weren't to be bolted.

Sinclair on Pettifers Wall

Ratho Quarry isn't just a rock climbing venue. Half of the quarry is taken up by the massive EICA Ratho, the largest climbing wall in Europe. Thanks to EICA I feel the rock climbing should be treated differently. Having a lot of mid grade sport routes next to the center may make more people climb outside, which can only really be a good thing. Why let a perfectly good crag become unused because a group of climbers that shout loud convince everyone that bolts are not needed. If these particular climbers actually visited the crag stopping it from becoming an overgrown mess then maybe they would have a point, but they don't. If it was my decision I would bolt the entire crag so that people would use it!

Myself on Pettifers Wall

Anyway, today I went to try the new sport routes with Sinclair Cooper and Tom Stork. We climbed Slow Strain (6b), Pettifers Wall (6c) and the new route of Kamikaze (6c+). Kamikaze was by far the best route out of the three, and felt very stiff for 6c+. I would go as far as saying it felt like the hardest sport route I have on sighted, despite apparently doing a 7a+ at Robs Reed last month. It was also nice to see other climbers at the crag!