During our trip back to the homelands Lisa’s long-time friend had mentioned that her partner was a climber and would be interested in getting out for a climb when we stayed in Torquay, Lisa’s old stomping ground. Now while the trip as supposed to give me some recuperation time to try and settle my niggling shoulder down, who am I to let someone down. So we found ourselves driving out of Torquay and up onto the iconic moorland landscapes of Dartmoor:
So while the girls caught up, Max and Elseya kept themselves by exploring the area including finding some 7 or 8 geocaches, and Mike and I had a climb mixed in with a bit of bouldering. Dartmoor is the largest area of granite in Britain. While most of this monstrous monolith is covered by peat deposits that provides the moorland landscape, there are granite outcrops protruding that form Tors. There are over 160 named outcrops with this name, and loads of unnamed ones:
The outcrops vary in height. The largest probably being Haytor with faces up to 35m but most of the Tors are much lower at 15m or less. On this trip we went to Hound Tor which is mostly no higher than 10m, bar a few scrambly and easy chimneys. It is also quite well known for its bouldering, and we did spy one boulderer lurking around the many buttresses and boulders that lay strewn across this hilltop:
With no guidebook to hand we walked around and picked lines that looked fun. It took a while to get used to the rock, which required jamming and complete trust on very rounded smear holds. We probably would have benefited from doing a bit or bouldering before we started to lead climb, instead we did that part way through:
Trying to grade the lines was tricky, Mike hadn’t climbed in some time and not being used to the rock and style made it hard to judge for me. It transpired that the first chosen climb, was rated a severe (Australian 12) but I would not have picked it. The next route we jumped on (below) was a steeper wall which didn’t have such obvious gear. It was there when needed but the flared rounded nature of the cracks, meant you really had to trust what often looked like iffy gear. This one rated about VS 4c/5a (15/16) and was really nice:
Hound Tor is a collection of outcrops, almost like a little castle wall defending the hill top. When we first got there I won’t deny I didn’t think the place had much to offer. However, the more we climbed the more the place grew on me, the routes were sustained and good quality and the rock, well it’s solid granite! So as the day wore on I started to spy more and more lines that looked appealing:
We aimed to climb lead for lead but Mike had managed to badly blister and open up the palm of his hand. He didn’t whinge about it but I could tell by the grimacing, especially on those big round slopers, that it was giving him grief. That said he took on some fine leads allowing me to relax on second and take in the great vistas that were all around us. We also bouldered on things that looked fun, and even soloed a few longer lines:
All up I think we managed six roped routes, and countless mucking about on other stuff. This is the last wall of the day, and it is also the place I had a chat with the boulderer who was working a V5 on the lower steep wall on the right. I caught up with him a couple of times and jumped on some of the problems he was working plus dipped into his guidebook to check out where we had climbed:
The last route came in at VS 4c/5a (15/16) and both Mike and I were by this time getting pretty tired. So we both had to focus hard on this one, the steep boulder start led to a rest at half height. It looked easy from there but the final moves were rounded and long, and required every ounce of concentration we had left to pull through cleanly. It was a great line to finish on and again quality all the way up:
For those eagle eyed people yes the gear we used does look like mine. That is because I took a selection of gear to mix in with Mike’s to make the day possible. Torquay has stacks of climbing options in close proximity, so maybe on the next trip we can dedicate a bit more time to get out and explore some more areas. But for today we were both stoked with what we got to do:
Then all that remained was the trip back down off Dartmoor, giving way to the Dartmoor ponies who couldn’t give a damn how much of a hurry you may be in. Eventually we crossed the cattle grids that marked the end of the roaming wildlife and brought us back to the busy streets of the towns. That evening we had fish and chips looking out over the ocean:
Thanks to Mike, Helen and Max for a grand day out.
Sandbagged 