A Massive Dartmoor Midsummer Challenge – Guest Post by Dominic Jeff

Fed up with the shortness of the routes on Dartmoor, Dominic Jeff and Jerome Taylor decided to make the most of their local crags by stringing them all together in one mammoth Midsummer challenge.

FOR the second time that day the wind tried to tear me off the rock as I enjoyed the hand jams in the rough granite of a Dartmoor tor.

By that time our Midsummer challenge, salvaged from the rain of another unpromising weekend, was hopelessly behind schedule, but the next stop was the pub and we could work out our options over a pint.

The original idea had been to walk from Jerome’s house in Bovey Tracey to my place at Buckfast on the south edge of Dartmoor, climbing a route on as many outcrops as we could possibly include.

In the end we hammered out the details of the challenge the night before over a beer and agreed that we would start out as soon as it was forecast to stop raining – 10am on Sunday.

We would walk up the river Bovey and approach Haytor from the more scenic Black Hill route, climb Hangover, E1, and then descend to Low Man and do the three pitch girdle traverse at E3. Then we would walk to Smallacombe Rocks, find an obscure micro route we had seen in the guidebook the night before, and climb that before crossing the valley to Greator and Hound Tor – climbing routes on each.

The plan was to travel as light as possible, with one half rope and a basic rack, and buy our supplies en-route. The burger van in Hound Tor car park and later the Rugglestone Inn in Widecombe-in-the-Moor would provide more than adequate sustenance.

From Hound Tor we would take the road to Jay’s Grave and cut across to Chinkwell Tor, to do another route we had just noticed in the South Devon and Dartmoor guidebook, Widecombe Wall, E1, improbably listed as 70ft high.

And what a climb it was – a good 50 feet of climbing on it in three contrasting sections, the upper being the jamming crack exposed to the elements.

But by then we had already torn up the plans. It was about 6pm, and we still had to have a pint, walk the four miles or so from Widecombe to Lukey Tor, climb an E2 there, ford the Dart – which we suspected all along might be impossible after two days of rain – and scramble up to Bench Tor to finish on a route there. Then we had a five mile hike back to my house.

In fact, we had soon realised that we should have started at 6am at the latest to stand a chance of success. The hike up to Haytor had been nice but took nearly two hours. Hangover, which I’d done before, was straightforward, but the girdle traverse took another two hours to complete.

At that point we had made an executive decision and scratched Smallacombe and Greator from the list to concentrate on the better and bigger climbs. Spurred on by the scent of burgers in the wind, we made excellent time to Hound Tor and bounded up Hob Hound, E2.

It was 4.30pm when we got our burgers, and the climbers we spoke to were sceptical of our chances of completing the challenge.  We made it to the Rugglestone for seven, but when we looked at the map we knew we were beat.

What we were faced with was basically a lot of walking for not much rock. It would take a good 90 minutes to walk to Lukey Tor, but lying at the bottom of a steep wooded valley, and being notorious for seepage and sandbagging, it would most likely provide an ignominious grave for out challenge. Much better to head straight to Bench Tor high above the Dart and finish up Hostile Witness, described to us earlier as “the best E2 on Dartmoor.”

We looked at the map spread before us and counted the kilometres – at least ten if we could get across the stepping stones at Dartmeet, more like 15 if we had to use the road bridge. We’d be lucky to get home for midnight. We decided to phone a friend, but first we had to walk out of the Widdecombe valley, which is even more charming for not having mobile phone reception.

Toby found us sprawled by the bridge at Ponsworthy, smoking. Luke, my border collie, had rolled in a variety of interesting excrement, yet still the good man drove us to Bench Tor. We got there at about 9.15pm, feeding time for the local midges.

The route looked intimidating – a lip traverse 20 feet up, escaped by a slap for a flake and some irreversible pulling. We doubled up our single rope to cope with rounding the arete, and the astonishing bucket hold on the corner of the overhang gave me the confidence to commit to the moves. The rock was a joy, as it had been all day – there’s nothing like a jug on Dartmoor granite.

Jerome followed in the failing light, topping out shortly before 10pm as I lay back on the slopping rock at the top and watched the trees on the opposite slope fade into the darkness.

Routes

For  those wishing to try a whistle-stop tour of Dartmoor, here is a list of routes to suit various abilities:

Haytor

Haggis 40ft HVS 5a
A fine slab topped with impressive overlaps, this route climbs the middle of the third buttress from the right, on the main face.

Hangover 50ft E1 5a
A line of least resistance through the big buttress on the left, with a number of possible starts.

Direct Justice 60ft E5 6a
Round the corner from Hangover is a steep wall providing several hard routes up shallow crack systems.  Direct Justice  gains the bottomless crack on the left from the faint central groove, follows it to an abrupt end at a peg, and then balances boldly up the wall above.

Low Man

Raven Wing 70ft VS 4b
Climb the obvious corner which splits the crag for 10ft, then pop round the arete and enjoy the featured wall above.

Aviation 130ft E1 5b, 5b
The line of least resistance up the main face. A pillar of fine grained rock 20ft right of Raven Wing leads to a coarser crack followed by a delicate traverse of the mid-height break to belay on a shield of rock. Pitch two tackles the widening crack above.

Like most of the excellent routes on this face, Aviation can be enjoyed “in a one-er” with the careful use of two ropes.

Low Man Girdle 200ft E3 5a, 6a, 4c
Start at the bottom  right hand corner of the crag, saunter up easily to the mid-height break and follow it to the Aviation belay. Follow the same break across the steep Interrogation wall to gain a large ledge on Raven Gully. Hop round the arete and make your way towards the top left hand corner to finish. Or do one of the better routes of the same grade.

Hound Tor

The routes described here are on Perched Block, thirty yards down towards the car park from the main summit.

Suspension Flake 30ft VS 4c
From a boulder on the left, pull onto the steep sweep of rock that faces the main tor and let the line of jugs lead you to the top. Run down and do it again.

Hob Hound 30ft E2 5c
Just round the corner from Suspension Flake, two shallow cracks in an innocuous slab lead to the same belay, via a rounded finish.

Toltec Twostep 30ft E5 6b/c
Gain the top jug of Suspension Flake direct, via some powerful climbing and, often, a pre-placed wire.

Chinkwell Tor

Widecombe Wall 70ft E1 5c

Climb the lower wall on its right to gain good flakes and traverse to the base of a green groove on the left. Ascend this with difficulty to the bulging hand crack, making the most of this cragg’s height

Other routes here would require some vigorous brushing.

Bench Tor

Suspended Sentence 55ft HVS 5b
Climb the grove formed by the jutting overhang of immaculate granite which dominates the right of the crag. At a small capping overhang, traverse right onto the main face and trend further right to finish.

Hostile Witness 50ft E2 5c
Follow Suspended Sentence to the base of the groove, from where a magnificent bucket hold on the lip can be gained. Hand traverse right, grab a good small flake and mantel it. Follow the easy crack above, then traverse the sloping top to a suitable finishing jug.

Judge Dredd 50ft E5 6a
From the same start as the previous two routes, gain the hanging arete which both traverse, and climb it on its left hand side. Carry on up a hanging grove to a rounded finish.

More info

A FREE guide to Hay Tor and Low Man is available on Dave Henderson’s excellent website, which also includes a comprehensive guide to Dartmoor bouldering, among other useful things.

For everything else there is South Devon and Dartmoor, by Nick White, which is now old enough to have spawned a new routes supplement, elegantly attached with a rubber band.

There is a decent campsite at Cockingford, about a mile south of Widdecombe-in-the-Moor.

The Rugglestone Inn, just outside the village itself, is the more rustic of Widdecombe’s two pubs. It has an idyllic beer garden which can get a bit nippy when the sun drops behind the hills, serves wholesome British food at a reasonable price and might even stock lager.

The Hound of the Basketmeals is a converted bus which serves burgers, tea, cake and the likes in the car park at Hound Tor. It’s usually there when you want it but doesn’t stay all that late.