Gillercombe Revisited

Written by LakesBloc Monday, 01 December 2008 00:00

The recent crisp and, for once, seasonal weather has seen a flurry of activity on the blocks within the vicinity of Gillercombe Buttress, Borrowdale. The first and most noteworthy, new offerings are situated on the boulders by the track at the base of Sour Milk Ghyl. These blocks are a mere 10 minutes easy walk from the parking and offer a number of good problems. Until now there was only a neat 7b+ lip traverse on the large undercut block, climbed a few years back by (we think) Ian Vickers, and a couple of easier lines on the block to the rear of the lip traverse. Greg Chapman has added a three star line - also on the rear block - which climbs the centre of the bulging (bullet hard) wall from standing via a good side-pull and poor sloper or crimp to a cruxy dead-point move for a wide pich. This is proceeded by some cool and less tricky moves to a final satisfying slap for a jug-like shelf, followed by a couple of easy moves to finish. For the full tick the arête (which can be reached on the last few hard moves) is to be avoided. Greg has entitled his new problem Tau Zero and offered the grade of low-end 7c/V9, as a rough idea of difficulty to any would-be suitors. To the left of the wall is an on obvious arête flanked by a gapping crack/micro gully, the arête climbed on the right (without the crack) is 7a+/V7 from sitting and 6c+/V5 from standing and is really very good. This has been given the handle of Thermodynamics.

At the boulders directly below Gillercombe Buttress Greg also climbed the central face of the large boulder nearest the crag, from sitting, to add an excellent highball 7a/V6.

We are currently putting together a new guide to the Gillercombe and Seathwaite boulders. This will hopefully be available for download sometime in December or early January 2009.

Image Right: Tau Zero (7c/V9).