Climbing book review: North Wales Rock (Ground Up)

I have been waiting for this climbing book for some time. It went out of print sometime in the last year to make way for the new, updated version, and I’m here to tell you it was well worth the wait.

Moving from indoor to outdoor rock climbing

Thinking of making the jump from rock climbing indoors at your local climbing wall to braving the natural stuff outdoors? Excellent choice, you won’t regret it. I’m assuming that you have done some indoor lead climbing on sport routes, and that you’re comfortable with clipping into quick draws, but that you haven’t yet placed any [...]

Snowdonia climbing – Amphitheatre Buttress 294m VD, Ogwen, North Wales

Having climbed a few decent outdoor routes, my brother David and I were really keen to try multi-pitch climbing on something BIG! We had so far managed outdoor lead climbs up to a grade of VS, and around a 5C indoors.

David’s mates Paul and Stuart showed us a pretty easy route called Middlefell Buttress, 97m Diff at Langdale in the Lake District. The climbing was easy, but in some places exposed which made for really enjoyable climbing. Needless to say, we were hooked!

I decided to start trawling the internet for big multi-pitch climbs, and came across one or two blogs describing a climb called the Amphitheatre Buttress, in the Ogwen Valley, Wales. The pictures posted on these blogs made my jaw drop, and at 294m, it was to be out biggest climb to date (by a long way). What’s more it’s only graded as V Diff, so well within our technical ability. I told David about the climb and we started to make plans for our Snowdonia climbing expedition.

Peak District climbing – Birchen Edge

I think I would have enjoyed my day rock climbing at Birchen Edge if it hadn’t been the consolation prize for what should have been a full weekend’s climbing in North Wales. David and I had driven over to the Llanberis Pass on the Friday night, only to leave on Saturday morning after a night of torrential rain and gale-force winds. The weather was OK on Sunday morning so we opted for a trip to the Peak District.

We decided to call off at Hathersage and visit the Outside climbing shop as we needed some new kit, so we looked in our climbing book for routes nearby. We had already climbed at Millstone and Lawrencefield, so we elected to give the fairly nearby Birchen Edge a try.

Snowdonia climbing – Flying Buttress 87m VD, Dinas y Gromlech area, North Wales

My brother David and I climbed this on the Sunday of a weekend expedition to North Wales, following an epic climb up the mighty Amphitheater Buttress on the Saturday.

Let me start by saying that there only one way to describe the walk-in to this climb… Evil! It’s actually more of a “scramble-in” (on all fours) up a super steep scree field, and will take anyone and everyone at least 30 minutes (probably more like 40 minutes). At least it starts at the roadside, there’s parking right opposite the crag, but get there early as it gets very busy.

Ilkley – A challenging Yorkshire crag and quarry

My brother David and I had planned to go to Scotland and climb Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis this weekend. Unfortunately, the Met Office told us that the weather was set to be pretty poor.

We sat down and looked for a crag that we could climb in Yorkshire which has routes 20m and over. David has a book by ROCKFAX called Northern England, in which we found the perfect candidate, Ilkley.

Climbing book review: Eastern Grit (ROCKFAX)

Eastern Grit is a really comprehensive climbing book, covering a massive 2950 climbing routes over 19 crags in the Peak District.

Lawrencefield – The Peak District

Lawrencefield is a fantastic crag. It has what I consider to be the most important attributes of a good climbing venue:

* It’s quiet
* It’s tall (for the Peak District) – some of the climbs are almost 30m
* There’s some really fantastic climbs, whether you’re a V Diff or E1 leader

If you can lead up to HS standard, you will absolutely love this venue as there are some really pleasurable and rewarding climbs in the lower grades.

Nova HS 4b, Lawrencefield, Peak District

This was our second trip to Lawrencefield, and it didn’t start too well. We got all the way down to the crag and I realised that I had left the guidebook in the car – doh! I had to run all the way back to the surprise view car park.

We started on the Gingerbread Slab, David kicked things off with a pretty easy V Diff called Snail Crack, which we had climbed on our previous visit. I decided the raise the stakes and go for a HS called Nova.

Climbing book review: Peak District Climbing (Vertebrate Publishing)

I was immediately drawn to Peak District Climbing because it’s published by Vertebrate Publishing. I have 3 of their mountain biking books and they have all been top-drawer. This book is no exception.