This afternoon, Nick and I, and three of our friends, went climbing at Bowles, a sandstone rock outcrop near his house in Kent.
On the way, we stopped at Harrison's Rocks, but that was all still completely soaking wet, so after walking in and back out, we drove on to Bowles.
Bowles was interesting. The crags are at the side of a paved road that leads to a general activity center, which also has indoor swimming pools (which you can see into from the crag), ski slopes, etc. The rock is a super-soft sandstone (and sandstone is a very soft rock generally), and has been climbed on, historically, a lot -- so there are very deep rope grooves at the tops of a lot of the climbs. You can only toprope there, because any trad gear that was fallen on would definitely just break the rock around it. And you're not supposed to lower or even hang around very much to avoid making things any worse (instead, you have to top out and walk off). The rock is very sandy, too (apparently this is particularly pronounced in winter), so you get kind of a gritty feeling that somewhat decreases friction on slopers. But, at the same time, the rock itself, sans sand, is very grippy. It's like Fontainebleau rock -- without the polish from the pof. In fact, this made it clear to me exactly how bad pof is for the rock, because you could see how nice unpoffed sandstone is to climb on.
So, by the time we got to Bowles for the afternoon, we had time to climb about five routes. My favorite, by far, was an English 5a called Pig's Nose. It was a really nice arete climb with a small roof at the top. Great holds. The only issue came when it was time to top out -- that was a little tricky/beached whale-y.
On the way, we stopped at Harrison's Rocks, but that was all still completely soaking wet, so after walking in and back out, we drove on to Bowles.
Bowles was interesting. The crags are at the side of a paved road that leads to a general activity center, which also has indoor swimming pools (which you can see into from the crag), ski slopes, etc. The rock is a super-soft sandstone (and sandstone is a very soft rock generally), and has been climbed on, historically, a lot -- so there are very deep rope grooves at the tops of a lot of the climbs. You can only toprope there, because any trad gear that was fallen on would definitely just break the rock around it. And you're not supposed to lower or even hang around very much to avoid making things any worse (instead, you have to top out and walk off). The rock is very sandy, too (apparently this is particularly pronounced in winter), so you get kind of a gritty feeling that somewhat decreases friction on slopers. But, at the same time, the rock itself, sans sand, is very grippy. It's like Fontainebleau rock -- without the polish from the pof. In fact, this made it clear to me exactly how bad pof is for the rock, because you could see how nice unpoffed sandstone is to climb on.
So, by the time we got to Bowles for the afternoon, we had time to climb about five routes. My favorite, by far, was an English 5a called Pig's Nose. It was a really nice arete climb with a small roof at the top. Great holds. The only issue came when it was time to top out -- that was a little tricky/beached whale-y.
We left around 5:15. There was probably still enough light to have climbed for half an hour or 45 more minutes, but it was getting cold quickly. On the way back, we passed an inn with the following sign, punctuated and emphasized in the following way:
"VILLAGE INN and food" with rooms
I was unclear on what, exactly, the quotes, capital letters, and italics were all trying to imply. But I enjoyed the sign anyways.
In other news, I'm on the waitlist for HLS housing next year. This is going to be so bad.
6 comments:
That's very unfortunate about the HLS housing, but can't you either find an apartment like you did over the summer or team up with one of your HLS or HMC buddies?
I'll try. I think the biggest issue is that my schedule is really weird -- I only need someplace to live from like September through January, most likely. I'm not that far down on the waitlist, though, so hopefully I will get some sort of (really icky, probably) room at HLS.
It looks very like Crow Hill.
But Crow Hill isn't sandstone, is it? And Crow Hill is also taller.
We always said that Crow Hill was "gritsone - just like in England". except we didn't know what gritsone was.
But this Bowles place is sandstone, which is totally different from gritstone. You'll see. Btw, it looks like plane tickets on BA for the end of June are now <$900
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