If saturday was spent getting up early and bumbling
around a forest near the peak, Sunday was spent in a similar way... yet
much more relaxed. Rachel and I have had a copy of the Forest of Dean
guidebook for a while now but it's just been sat on a shelf (on in a
stack as we had a recent clear out of the living room) not being used.
As guidebooks go clearly a lot of time, effort and I'd say love has been
put into this one. The climbing down in the forest of dean (from
reading the guidebook and my single trip down there climbing) is a
little weird, especially if you're used to your grit not crumbling away
and you pebbles small and stable. Simply it's not the peak district,
it's not even churnet, but it's different. I like it.
A word on
the ethic of climbing there. A lot of the routes are given British trade
grades and corrosponding tech grades, however you'll be doing the
majority of your climbing without a rope and harness. In fact they have
gone as far as to highlight the routes that it's worth putting a harness
on for. Most routes have been soloed, with prior inspection, which
given the nature of the rock seems sensible. There is a lot of pebble
pulling going on here so testing the crucial pebbles before setting off
on a hard solo is probably the best thing to do. The rock is quite sandy
too, so carrying a few brushes (more than just your standard bouldering
toothbrush) will help. A chalkbag, rockboots, a pad and a good attitude
and belief in your own own abilities will get you up most routes.
It's
not all highball nightmares on crumbling rock. I spent the day there
and had an awesome time (though I do like crumbly & loose rock).
There is plent of "normal" bouldering there for and plenty of actual
trad climbing but Rachel and I just went for a explore really. We didn't
bother with a trad rack and stuck to just carrying a pad and shoes all
day. We visited a couple of little boulders and had a craxk at several
little problems ranging from about 5a to 5c. The grading was pretty odd
as some of the 5c problems were nails and some easy as pie, but what the
hell. We had a great time and I'll be heading back there soon. Here's
some picture from our day, sorry they are all landscape but the upload
doesn't like putting my pictures in in portrait.
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| A post box with VR on it, and I don't even remember where is was as we managed to get a little lost! |
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| First problem of the day, a 5a arete. It needed a pretty good brush up first. |
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Rach puzzelling over the guidebook at the first boulder |
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| Rach tackling the 5b traverse |
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| The awesome rock structure. I'm pretty sure these are the graves of pebbles who escaped from the rock, to haunt the world of bouldering as zombie pebbles. |
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| My first Forest of Dean E1. Technically it was 5c but it had a 6 metre drop. |
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| This was one of those misgraded problems. considering it was supposed to be 5c, it htink it was wrong. Still good fun trying to work it out though! |
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