Friday 20 April 2012

Return to Harborough


     Looking out of the window this morning things were looking up.  The walls of the buildings were dry but the forecast of dinner-time rain drove me with urgency back to the limestone of Harborough.

     The rock is magnesium limestone and is really well featured.  The bottoms of the routes are very polished and slippery but the rock and holds improve with height.  I don't know of any other venue quite like it with its little cave and ‘dolomitic’ pinnacles.  The outlook would be nicer but for the noisy factory right below the crag.

     It felt good to get some metres in and feel a bit of exposure, though I kept to easy stuff and didn’t go too high.

     I stayed in the Steeple Area as there were other climbers around the corner and I always feel like a show-off soloing things other people are using a rope for.  This did mean I missed out on climbing on a large part of the crag.  




     Particularly memorable were Concave Wall and Spider Chimney, this being quite an adventure for its size.  Is the top chock-stone safe?  There’s only one way to find out!

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