Just another visit to a new crag: Almscliff

Almscliff Crag in full, near Leeds (UK)
Walking into Almscliff. Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmymarshall/

Title says it all and unfortunately no photos to show for it! For some reason, I've noticed that while I'll happily take a camera with me on a foreign trip, I never remember at on a weekend?

Anyway, had a great day up at Almscliff just exploring the area with Brian, Sophie and Lindy. Basically a high mileage day just getting to see the area. It's an outcrop of rock up on a hill with a surprisingly high concentration of problems and routes, many of the boulder problems being steep which is a nice change from Stange and Burbage. As UKC says, 
"Over 180 climbs and even more boulder problems packed onto one tiny hillside. Classics abound......world class bouldering" 
Amusingly, I got to experience one of the 7a+'s which involves a big cross through off a 2-finger pocket. Since I'm strong on pockets, I'd say it's only about 6b-ish. Trish was talking about merits of open-handed over crimping and I definitely get impression that crimping is the way to go here in the UK, but that it also means that many of the climbers aren't very strong on pockets!

I got a great tour anyway, and am definitely psyched for a trip up again, some of the harder lines actually look really appealing here. I had a short two hours yesterday out at the Plantations yesterday also - tried the old classics Brad Pitt and The Storm. Amazingly improbable problems (heels at head height and somehow let go a hand without pinging off), they're so much more about movement than actual raw strength so I feel I'm going to learn quite a bit from them. Having said that, I'm keen to find some power/strength-based problems soon, something that I'll be able to use and transfer onto sports routes after the winter is over!

Weirdly had a great session in at the Works last week, managed almost a full lap of one of the more difficult circuit in two hours. Just another sign that a week-long bouldering trip can show nice gains!

Comments

  1. This is right near my GF's parents house I go there all the time

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  2. sounds like a cool spot, bring your camera with you next time!! I'd love to see what it's like up close!

    BTW my camera miraculously started working again... guess some of the chalk and sand fell out of it!!

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  3. I actually wrote about the camera as a mental reminder to myself to get the finger out and bring it next time :) Amazingly my own camera is still working at present. I have a feeling that it's not that the sand falls out but that it gets moved out of the way of whatever it's damaging :o)

    @Stowgood: nice! it's a cool location, was expecting somewhere much more spread out but the quality of the problems were great. Routes looked good too although I chickened out of soloing up an E1 to top out the crag after completing a boulder problem at the bottom :)

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