Page 33 - 2020 AMA Winter

Tippling Wall at Scots Crags, Scugdale
this was/is ‘unknownstones.com’ and has undertook the herculean task of producing online guides to all, currently, known crags/craglets/boulders in the Empire of Yorkshire. It started off as purely gritstone venues but now encompasses limestone and, randomly, holiday spots throughout Europe!
Across the Vale of Mowbary the North Yorkshire Moors has always been a climbing backwater but well loved by the locals who seemed quite to happy to keep the info close to their chests and as such development has always been slow with few ‘outsiders’ willing to spend time getting acquainted with the peculiarities of the local scene. However, whilst the crags are generally diminutive, they have produced some brilliant climbers with big
Tea Party Slab, Slipstones
reputations, John Redhead, Nick Dixon and Steve McClure all cut their teeth on the local crags. It was not until 2003 that a general guidebook attempted to pull in all the esoteric crags into a coherent format. This guidebook (Climbing in North East England) quickly went out of print but the proverbial cat had been let out of the bag and the advances in bouldering quickly led to a huge surge in development. In 2014 North Yorkshire Moors and East Coast Bouldering was published by betaguides. com and the range of new venues was eye popping to say the least. The area has been bubbling along ever since and has now received another well-timed boost in the shape of Franco Cookson’s self-pub- lished guidebook to the North York Moors bringing the area bang up to date and with routes and problems comparable to the
rest of the country, look up MYXOMOP, E9 7a above pads, to see the cutting edge of NYM bouldering.
THE VENUES
Rather than try to list the frankly ridiculous amount of bouldering available I’ll break the county down into a few specific areas and then list of few of the choice plums and some venues that you should make the effort to visit, first up...
RYLSTONE FELL AND BARDEN FELL
A huge expanse of classic gritstone crags and boulders, from the renowned Crookrise and Simons Seat to the still developing Embsay this area has literally everything. Ultra-classic climbs (for example Dental Slab, the best Severe in Yorkshire, therefore the world) to the hardest gritstone test pieces (Lanny Bassam Font 8a+) and back again to lowball beginner circuits. The rock is immaculate and so are the views, simply a phenomenal place to visit and climb. Check out the Moon Boulder just off the main path after the Rylstone Cross, a great warm up bloc. A personal favourite venue is Lords Seat on Barden Fell...the roughest gritstone you will ever encounter, pebble pulling at its finest in perfect solitude.
NIDDERDALE
Home to the mighty Brimham Rocks... over a thousand routes and problems, still growing and not counting the associated crags in the immediate walking vicinity. When people say you could spend a
Bouldering at Brimham Rocks
First Ascent at Crag X
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 33