Deep Blue Yonder
Written by Greg Chapman Sunday, 01 May 2011 16:16
A few noteworthy additions from the last couple of weeks: at the Lad Stones I added a couple of decent problems to the steep back face of the Panorama Stone. First up, Rocko’s Modern Life (7a+/V7) starts in the far left hand corner of the face, from sitting, and climbs a curving line rightwards into the upper section of Hades Lair to finish. I then managed to link this into Dan Varian’s excellent Warstarter, to give Battalyst, a meaty link weighing in at around the 7c/V9. Whilst up there, I sorted a few landings and cleaned up a few problems, so now’s the time to visit if you haven’t been before. Having also recently visited the crag, Dave Jones went on to make a quick repeat of Battalyst, and add a low right-hand start to Warstarter – starting LH good slot, RH poor crimpy pocket – which he reckoned to be around the same grade as the original. A new guide is currently under construction, but in the meantime there is some additional info (and a topo of the Warstarter face) here.
Over on the west coast, I climbed a superb new problem at the Old Buoys Circuit of St. Bees Head – North. Deep Blue Yonder (7b/V8) climbs the imposing highball arête left of The Argo. As the top of the block has only around 30cm of exposed rock, you must traverse the lip rightward for around 1.5m to where topping out is possible. Despite this minor detracting factor (which actually adds as couple of good and tough extra moves) the climb is an absolute classic, featuring as good a line, rock and climbing as offered anywhere on the headland! A sitter, at 7b+/V8, is also possible, but to be honest rather pointless.
There are images of all the aforementioned problems in their respective galleries.
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