Peak District climbing – Wharncliffe
Wharncliffe is a bit of a dark horse.
With it’s lowly aspect overlooking the steel rolling mills of Stocksbridge, and the fact that most of its routes are only between 8 and 14 metres you might be forgiven for overlooking it as a decent rock climbing venue. I urge you to take another look, I climbed there last Sunday and I have to say I thought it was actually really rather good.
The crag features a wealth of routes across a very wide range of grades and the rock is excellent quality. Unlike many of the Peak’s gritstone crags which have large but rounded holds, Wharncliffe features much smaller, sharper holds (which suits me just fine). There was literally no polish on any of the routes that we climbed, which, I suspect, is due to the fact that it was really quiet. In the whole time we were there we only saw 2 other climbing parties on the entire crag! Compared to the “take a ticket and queue” scenarios we have experienced at many other crags in the Peaks it was a welcome change.
David getting to grips with Slab and Corner (HS)
You can park closer, but we elected to park on Station Road outside the pub and walk up. If you decide to do the same; just head up the hill, take the first little path on your left, walk through a small tunnel then look out for an unofficial but well trodden path on the right, follow that path, passing a huge electricity pylon, through a gate and eventually you reach the foot of the crag at the Prow Rock end.
We didn’t have a huge amount of time as David had to get back to Scarborough, but here’s what we climbed (As usual, taking it turns to lead):
- Me: Hamlet’s Climb HVD what a bloody lash up! If you decide to do this climb, please don’t do what I did and climb into the horizontal chimney, keep your hands in it and traverse across on the outside. Once you’re in, it’s a bugger to get back out
- David: Slab and corner HS Not much in the way of protection until you reach the corner on this one. It’s pretty easy climbing though
- Me: Cheese block HS I really enjoyed this one. It looks like it’s going to be really fluttery but it isn’t. Just really nice climbing on small but edgy holds
- David: Puttrell’s progress S This one was a really interesting climb. We picked it because the guide book showed a great full-page image of someone in a cool position on it. It was hilarious to watch David on the first part of the climb, he got stuck in the crack on his belly, baby seal style
Me on Cheese Block (HS)
The climbers we did meet on the crag were really friendly and we enjoyed chatting with them after our last climb.
Would I visit Wharncliffe again? Hell Yeah! Only next time I would like to stay a bit longer.
If you require a guide book for this crag (and pretty much any other gritstone crag in the Peak District), I would strongly recommend Eastern Grit by ROCKFAX. Available at Amazon at a discounted £15.99, usually £20.95 (bargain).
As always I would love to hear your experience. Please feel free to comment.
