climbing stuffclimbing stuff
I was initially disapointed ticking off Beacon Hill. After the crowds clear off and the sun starts to set, the views over Leicestershire are pretty special. It made for a great little escape from Birmingham. It is a tantilsing crag, the rock is egonomic and slick, providing technical problems at decent height, if there was one less hold you would have a fleet of brilliant, hard faces. Alas, those holds existed, and I found myself sitting watching the sun go down, thinking up excuses to return, when my wishlist of new places to visit grows ever longer.
I came back a few weeks later, in hopes of chancing upon something new. It was a long shot. The crag is small and has been well climbed since the 60s. My logic, however, was that it was a crag for trad/boulder beginners or climbers passing through for a easy circuit. No "strong" boulderer would invest time here when Forest Rock sits at the bottom of the hill. I have often found that most "strong" boulders get to a certain level and become so involved in the pursuit of hard climbs that they lose all vision of the what is around them. With luck, it appeared my theory held true. I returned to a section of wall I had eyed up on my first visit. In the shadow of Third Time Lucky and to the right of the popular Starship Trooper was a thin section of featured wall. A low section of pockety holds; a large flake; topped off with some sharp crack lines. The feet didn't look great but the handholds were positive, I had hoped it would be a bit harder but it was tall, easy to define and the middle section showed promise of some brawl.
Boy was I wrong...
This problem was a Rubiks cube... And everything I was looking for.
My first session was in the summer of 2020. The first positive holds lure you in gently, then the feet become too high or too low, the hands are all the wrong way and everything else is glass. I returned session after session, making it up a meter, enetering a wrestling match and losing. No real progress was being made. The sun would set each time, casting it into shadow, and I could sit and watch the world go to sleep.
2023 rolled round, I was getting close to moving into a layback on the flake, but it felt wrong. As soon as you leaned right on the flake you back was in the corner, anyone bigger than me would be chimneying. I decided to go back to the drawing board. If I could establish high enough in the decent start holds, I might be able to skip as much of the flake as possible. After a few tests, at full span I could even reach to the very top of the flake to a incut 2 finger crimp. It was max span, feet left way behind, no holds for my left hand... but the game was on.