Martin Crocker climbs new South Coast E5 and E4

It continues to be a busy summer on Cornwall's South Coast and things stepped up a gear last week with a visit from Martin Crocker. In the company of his son Jonathan, Martin added five new climbs to various seaside venues. Perhaps the most noteworthy being Unzip Real Slow E5 5c, at Dodman Point, which sounds like a really frightening lead protected mostly by skyhook runners and 'feather-weight' gear. Also here Martin climbed Deadman's Chest, E1 5a, which he says is worth a star and offers excellent climbing on good rock.

The pair also paid a visit to Lantic Bay resulting in two further additions to Great Lantic Beach Rock. This must surely be the most pleasant and amenable of South East Cornwall's coastal climbing spots and Martin seems to be a fan, describing it as 'a stunningly beautiful place'. Any climbers living or holidaying in the area should take note: Lantic Bay is well worth the trip.

At Pencarrow Head - in addition to climbing all the existing deep water solos - Martin also soloed Totally Out of My Skull, F6a+ (S3.5!) in preference to using the 'gnarly' ridge descent to access the Grim Reefer Wall. While the ridge descent isn't quite as bad as it looks care does need to be taken and it is probably worth roping up for it on first acquaintance.

Previously in February Martin also climbed a new route on the remarkably good Western Gear Pinnacle at Rame Head. Keep On Lovin, E4 6a, is described as a fine pitch on great rock and takes the wall to the left of Pete O'Sullivan's 1984 route Framed. It has emerged that the two routes to the right, Retrieved and Revived, are both in fact yet to receive a lead ascent (see note on the New Route page). If anyone does lead these please get in touch and you'll get all the first ascent glory!

Full descriptions of these routes can be found here. Many thanks to Martin Crocker for providing the details and useful feedback on other things from the area.

Heaps of adventure and delightful coffee on the South Coast

The last weekend of June was a busy one for new routes on the South Coast. First up an experienced team of South West pioneers descended on Nare Head to climb a three pitch ridge-line which had been on Pat Littlejohn's 'to do list' for quite sometime. For this adventure Pat assembled a crack team of veteran climbers which included Dave Garner, Dave Hope and Des Hannigan. The resultant rock climb, named Finger Ridge (pictured above), turned out to be 200 feet of VS fun. Des Hannigan commented on the route's greatest attributes: "The coffee at Nare Hotel was a delight," he said. I dare not hazard a guess at the combined age of the route's first ascent party!

The following day just along the coast at Dodman Point, the slightly more youthful pair of Tom Bunn and Alex Orr put up a clean aid route that sounds truly terrifying. The Pioneer takes a crackline up the overhanging wall between The Jolly Farmer and Horrorshow and was climbed without recourse, of course, to hammered or drilled protection.

Unbeknownst to Tom and Alex the Littlejohn and Garner team responsible for The Jolly Farmer were just a few hundred metres away on the Prince Heathen Cliff adding more climbs to their Dodman stomping ground. A VS named Pretender, and two E2s called Quartzophenia (pictured below) and Handsome Prince were the result of a good day's work for the greatest devotees of Dodman's adventure climbing. According to Pat: "We had a great day at last finding some solid rock to climb on Dodman!"

Full descriptions of all these routes and more photos can be found on the New Routes page of the Cheesewring Climbing Website. I'd be grateful to anyone with information on new routes or other climbing news in South East Cornwall if they could get in touch to let us know. Finally many thanks to Pat Littlejohn, Dave Garner, Dave Hope, Des Hannigan and Tom Bunn for providing details of these new routes and permission to use the first ascent photos.

Tom Bunn frees Super Indirect to give Talking Heads - F7b

Tom Bunn has recently added a new sport route to Cheesewring Quarry's Central Bay. Talking Heads, F7b, is essentially a free version of the old aid climb Super Indirect, A2. First climbed over a couple of days in 1970 by Steve Chadwick, with Len Benstead and Brian Wright, Super Indirect was one of the last remaining aid climbs from this period. Although the first section had been freed in 1989 by Ken Palmer (as part of his climb Mauritius) its main aid pitch, a traverse of the Central Bay, had not been climbed free. It is this pitch which forms the bulk of Tom Bunn's impressive new route.

Spectral Radius, Black Panther and Black Sabbath are now the only '70s aid routes in the quarry that remain to be freed completely, and of these the latter two have been freed but for very short sections of climbing.

Tom made his ascent of Talking Heads just a month after he'd added another new climb to Cheesewring's walls; Destruction in a Granite Setting is a Font.7B-graded micro-route on the Southern Outcrop.

The local climbers are continuing with the re-equipping of Cheesewring's sport routes and new stainless steel bolts have now been placed on Real Live Wire, F7b (7 bolts) and Wring the Changes, F7b+ (5 bolts). A new stainless steel bolt with mailon has also been added to the previously dodgy lower-off atop Psychokiller. Concerns had been raised about the state of this lower-off in the past as a single stainless staple, which accompanied a very dubious old ring peg, seemed to be the only reliable gear.

Full descriptions of these two new routes can be found on the Cheesewring Quarry section of the New Routes page on the Cheesewring Climbing website.