St. Bees South - Tale of the Honey

Written by LakesBloc Sunday, 17 January 2010 09:50

North Lakes lads Jon Freeman and Dan Turner have taken up the gauntlet at St. Bees Head – South and freed a couple more of the many excellent projects. Both new lines are left and right hand variations of the same “awesome undercut prow” line, described as a project on the current topo, at 'Area D'.

The lines go thus: Both problems start from standing/low (on the stepped block) from a rail of two decent pockets, low on the right hand side of the prow.

1. Tale of the Talbots (7b+/V8) - Pull on at the pockets and move your LH out to a crimp high on arête, finish by rocking direct to the top. (FA: Dan Turner)

2. Honeycomb (7b/V8) – Again from the low pockets, pull on and make a large throw out to a pinch/crimp on the right arête, then straight to the top. (FA: Jon Freeman)

Image: Dan Turner on Tale of the Talbots (7b+/V8).

There is a video (also featuring The Kraken, Killer Bee, Kill Switch and Orca ) of both new climbs here.

Red Whale Extension

Also of note: Andy McVittie and friends climbed an extension to the classic 6a+/V2 nose, Red Whale, also at 'Area D'. This starts as far right as possible and traverses left into the original problem.

Andy acknowledges that this line may well have been climbed before but feels it's worth mentioning, as it's not described on the recent selected guide and is a classic of the grade - 6b/V3 or thereabouts.