My Eastern Grit guide warns me that Wharncliffe has "a bit of a reputation as a grim venue" due to its "slightly industrial" location and "awful landings". This is probably the reason I haven't been before. After one visit I am totally enthused by the place. If your idea of grim and industrial is the presence of a line of electricity pylons then fair enough. Otherwise it's a lovely crag set on a pretty wooded hillside above Deepcar -which makes it possible to get to a Peak Gritstone edge and back on a long summer evening – can't be bad, can it.
It's about a one-and-a-half hour drive then a twenty minute walk in, and you are rewarded with a long line of buttresses. The crag faces the right direction to catch the sun right up until sunset – we arrived to find Dave S lying around sunbathing. The rock itself is really nice, frictiony gritstone, quite positive and edgy compared to a lot of other grit crags – I really liked it. True enough, the landings would be nasty, the base of the crag is mostly a jumble of shattered boulders, on the other hand hopefully with a bit of protection in you won't be hitting the ground anyway. Ironically the only injury that did in fact occur was not caused by contact with the ground but with a slab, when Rob took a flyer from Photo Finish and crocked his ankle badly.
There were about 18 of us in all – some YAC folk, some york.climbers, and a few other assorted yorkies, even so the crag was big enough that once we had split into teams and wandered off it didn't feel crowded. There was such a variety of quality routes at all grades available that I think I could happily have spent the whole evening on a single buttress, I didn't get near any of the climbs I had mentally ticked to do but every route gave me that "what a good route" feeling. Anyway, enough burbling and enthusing, I will certainly be going back to Wharncliffe, didn't even get round to Himmelswillen "the classic of the crag".
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Phew! think that's it.
| Routes done by various people (inc multiple ascents): | |
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Another Phew!
An excellent evening and hopefully Rob's ankle will be back in action soon.