Grinding away on the Gabbro

Gabbro (pronounced: ɡæbroʊ) refers to a large group of dark, coarse-grained, intrusive mafic igneous rocks chemically equivalent to basalt. The rocks are plutonic, formed when molten magma is trapped beneath the Earth's surface and cools into a crystalline mass.

Carrock Fell with the Boardman's, Mushroom and Low Boulders left of centre.

Gabbro can be found on the flanks of Carrock Fell, Cumbria and that's where I spent the afternoon, whiling away my time on the problems, which can be found on the Gabbro boulders. Carrock Fell is probably one of the best venues close to Carlisle and for some reason I've not visited it since November of last year.

Problem 17 on the Aretes Boulder.

Crimping up Problem 18 on the Aretes Boulder.

I took in some new problems before moving on to a problem I have tried once before, but didn't get round to completing. I worked out a new sequence of moves, which got me past my previous high point, and then I couldn't make the following move to the top. I ground the problem into submission with countless attempts and instead of it letting up, my fingers let out. I had to call the session to an end as my finger tips started to spurt blood over the small sloping, but incredibly painful holds, as well as anything else I decided to touch.

However, before leaving I happened to notice that there's a large field of boulders between the two central groups of documented problems, which look to have a few lines, albeit above bad landings, that don't appear in the Lakes Bouldering guidebook. I may just be back before another four months pass to check them out.

Good lines, stay safe and see you on the wet stuff...
Iain

A day in the sun...

I was over in the Langdale Valley today and spent the majority of my time climbing up and down the aptly named Langdale Boulders. I repeated a variety of problems, which I have done on previous visits to this stunning location, and ticked off a couple of new problems as well.

There isn't much else to say really, as I think pictures are the only medium that could do the day any real justice; it was that amazing.

Back Boulder Left (V6) with the Langdale Pikes behind.

The Overhang (V5) with the Langdale Pikes behind.

Adding a sit start to The Overhang, which bumps the grade up to V7.

The Pocket with the Langdale Pikes behind (V5).

More pictures of the day can be found here.

Good lines, stay safe and see you on the wet stuff...
Iain

Another Bowderstone Session...

Good lines, stay safe and see you on the wet stuff...
Iain

Sunday Sandstone

As with the Sunday tradition I was out on the sandstone today. The venue was Rothley Crag, which is just over 4 miles away, as the crow flies, from Shaftoe, where I was a week ago. This meant that many of the boulder problems were of a similar nature to the ones I ticked at Shaftoe however I went with a definite motto in my mind, "send it within three goes or move on."

Working out how to mantel over Yorkshire Roof (Font 6b).

As a result of this, I walked away from the crag, three-and-a-half hours later, having ticked twenty-two problems. None of them were exceptionally hard, but it was nice to get a lot done, and now when I next visit the crag I'll be paying a bit more attention to specific problems, or maybe I'll carry on working my way through the remaining 196 problems.

Another Arete (Font 6a), another mantel shelf.

Making the leftwards traverse on Zig Zag (Font 6a).

We didn't leave the crag until 4:30 so we were blessed with a lovely light as I came to the end of the session and I was slightly excited for the drive back west along the Military Road, because the sun would be setting in the distance.

Pulling off the ground on South Sea Bubble (Font 6a) as the evening sun illuminates the rock.

The sun didn't disappoint and as we passed through Walwick the sun was sitting on the Military Road, and a couple of minutes later it was below the horizon and darkness started to set in.

A setting sun as we head for home down the Military Road.

More pictures of the bouldering at Rothley Crag can be found here.

Good lines, stay safe and see you on the wet stuff...
Iain