UKC

Next week I plan to take my daughter and her friend (16 year olds with climbing experience) up the Pinnacle (just the S on the front). 

Does anyone know the best way to approach from the pay and display car park? I've only found two ways down, one near introductory rocks and one at the far end of the crag. Perhaps there is an easy way to find the pinnacle from the top and abseil in?

There's an abseil above the cave nearby I think (judging by the hideous polish) but god knows how to get to the top of that. 

There's a pay and display carpark now?  bloody hell, it was free in 1998.  From memory, the top 1/3rd of symonds was just a steep mud or soil slope so you'd be better off walking in from the start rather than sending stuff down onto any other climbers while you abseiled. 

There is for sure an easy abseil in. From memory we just charged forwards, found and tree and located the pinnacle from there 😅

Or head it via introductory rocks and its 10/15 wander-ish

I would probably walk towards the tea room, hop over the fence at the second culvert and walk down the steep amphitheatre popping out near snoozin' suzie. From there I would walk along the base of the crag. But I have the advantage of knowing which culvert I mean.

I would also make sure you have plenty of change for car parking, as whilst one of the pay by phone apps is available, I have never had enough signal to use it. 

It is possible to head out of the back of the car park and there's a couple of places you can scramble (near Waterpipe Bay area, IIRC) or ab down and - if you can find the top - Needle Rock Gully is a (polished) Diff you can scramble/ab down just behind the Longstone.

Can't get at my guidebook at the moment, so can't be more help.

You can locate the pinnacle from the top (just head straight down through the trees from the car park and walk one way or the other till you spot it! You can ab straight down a short chimney/gully right opposite the pinnacle. Its called Needle Rock Gully and has the sheen of a well used access/egress point! Just take some rigging rope or a couple of slings as a minimum so you dont damage the trees. Enjoy!

Quickest and easiest is to descend by the introductory rocks, then on downstream and through the snoozing suzie tunnel. Follow the crag base along with a few ups and downs for a hundred yards or so to reach the neck behind the Longstone. Takes 10 minutes.

Abseiling down needle rock gully is the quickest route down.

Just don't attempt to solo down the thing - it's extremely polished and could either result in scaring everybody or worse - an accident.

Thanks for all the replies, it sounds like either walk in from the Introductory Rocks or abseil in from the car park side

You can descend easily and more directly to a point just N of the Hollow Rock tunnel, cutting out the longer northward loop of going via Introductory Rocks. It's about 100m N of the toilet block. Even if you abseil in or use the longer approach first time, I'd go back up that way; then you'll know where it is.

... by the way, I don't recommend the Waterpipe Bay scrambling descents with novices/children - they are fairly easy technically, but exposed and can be dirty.

Interesting, I'll try that next time. Do you just walk through the trees directly to it?

I'm pretty sure I always approached South of the toilet block.

It's all a bit approximate, but from just S of toilet block and going directly downslope gets you to Waterpipe Bay, more or less - so to get to the wide gully just N of the tunnel, you have to bear diagonally right as you go down (if starting at the toilet block). It's probably best to check it out in ascent first, because those woods and paths all start looking very similar!