It’s been well over a year and possibly two since I have climbed at Wallcliffe, and there are several reasons. First technically it is illegal to climb here, but that said the local bye law that stands had been previously contested in parliament and thrown out so the current law may be on equally shaky ground. Second it is a heritage site and is protected, but then so is the river that runs past the crag and people still swim, kayak and paddle board on it. Lastly my memory of the place is that it is steep, pumpy and technical. But today Kym was keen to head out and plumped for this place, so I went along with it:
There have been a number of routes put up here since I last climbed, and so we decided today we would jump on the new stuff and it was kind of exciting to know we would be on routes that we had not attempted before. I didn’t mind the idea as I knew a number of them were grade 20 and less (UK 5b’ish), so should be quite doable. I started on the easiest of the bunch (the image above) and really enjoyed it; the rock was sharp and friction bomber. Also it had no bee hives near it, which can be a real hazard at this crag and the hive shown below was right next to Kym’s first lead:
Kym jumped a fun line called Thai Massage and when we climbed it the reason for the name became apparent. Part way up you can back and foot against a stalactite and it feels like a severe back massage, as well as (I’m told) being similar to the type of climb you might find in Thailand. It was another good route with good positions and exposure, but you had to watch out for a couple of small bee hives. The rock was again sharp and it wouldn’t be long before they started to sting:
As I followed Kym up on this one I came across another animals, well I found its home which was made of small sticks neatly glued together to make this conical home. I’ve seen these before but have never found out what they are called. It is only about 2cm long, but the engineering skill for such a small creature to get such a perfectly formed home amazes me:
I was up next and this climb Kym put up but I had never attempted. Named Head-butt due to the person Kym allowed to have the first ascent managed to head-butt the crag during that ascent. Another fun climb with a great flake at the top which can be climbed in a number of ways, but we all know you should lay-back flakes and this one is brilliant. The good thing about this route was the rock wasn’t as sharp and our fingertips didn’t suffer as much:
With three quality lines under our belt, and a desire to jump on new stuff we had little option but to push the grade and the next one went at 23 (UK 6a’ish). This part of the crag has great looking clean rock, and it is amazing that it took so long before anyone set any routes here. Kym had spied the potential lines some time back but was a bit slow in getting to them, so missed his chance. But that did mean we had three more lines neither of us had ever been on to attempt:
The first one above was very good, but only had one short crux sequence. It took a little working out but Kym managed to get up it after a few short rests to figure it out. Having watched him climb it gave me enough info and I managed a clean climb, albeit on second. It was certainly more in keeping with the climbs I expected to come across here and was pretty pumpy, as well as once again having some sharp holds that you couldn’t avoid. Before my lead I decided to rest up the arms and take a few snaps of some of the other nature that was out on this winter’s day:
I couldn’t put it off for too long so eventually started up the line to the left, that we thought was the same grade. It shared the same start but then headed up a beautiful clean face that yielded on pockets, underclings and layaways. A good number of the holds were finger cutting sharp and the tips were getting very thin now. The crux sequence, this time comprising several sections, also proved too hard and I had to rest up to figure it out. Kym did better than me on it, and we agreed it was probably a grade harder (and we were right):
We had saved the crème-de-la-crème till last, it was also the hardest line. The guide gives it the same grade as the last one but we both found it tougher and more sustained. Kym went up first and managed to get to the orange headwall, which is where I am in the image below. He was close to bagging it but after falling off, each subsequent attempt only sapped his finger strength. Eventually he came down and I gave it a bash and promptly failed at the same spot. However, between us we had a couple of ideas of how to get through the very, fingery section on the headwall. Kym got it in the end and with fingers shredded and torn we left a blood trail up the last route, which was also a sign to tell us to end what was another grand day out:
Sandbagged 