Amenable New Highball Classic

Written by Greg Chapman Saturday, 23 April 2011 12:39

John Kettle has climbed a fine looking new highball problem at Gouther Crag, in Swindale. John gave me the lowdown:

"Thought you should know I've added a new line to Gouther Crag. Its climbs the whitish fin sticking out from the crag opposite Truss Buttress (visible about 50m right and 100m uphill of J Mascis). Its a gobsmacking line (the sort normally reserved for heavyweight grades) and after an epic 2 hour cleaning sesh I was amazed to find it went at an amenable but highball V3/4 [6b+/c]. I'm seriously chuffed with it and will boldly state that I reckon its the best problem of its grade in the lakes - one for your revised top 50 list! Some potential projects remain around it but require more serious cleaning."

Image right: John Kettle on his new, classic looking, Gouther Crag highball, Theology.

Also of note: Noah Bowness reports accidentally damaging the starting hold/s(?) on the Cloud Chamber, at the Sour Milk Ghyll boulders below Gillercombe. He has apparently left the broken hold on a rock next to the boulder. Noah was unsure whether the damage would affect the grade of the problem. If anyone gets up there sometime soon, I’d be keen to know…

Finally, I recently noticed more dry tooling damage at Farleton Knott, and others have mention further rock scratchings at Hutton Roof. Please, if you see anyone with ice climbing equipment around any of these SSSI(!) crags, remind them that what they are doing is seriously misguided. There’s an image of more recent damage over on the blog.