UKC

Wye Valley bouldering

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 philluu 17 Apr 2018

I will be passing the Wye Valley at the weekend and never climbed there before so hoping to do some light bouldering.

The crag starting with Hunts and ending in ham looks great but I wanted a bit of advice on access.

The RAD says banned but the wording on that and the crag page on UKC is a bit more woolly.

Reading between the lines, is it OK as long as you keep your head down and leave if told to?

In reply to philluu:

I’ve never had any problem bouldering there in the last 5+ years. You’ve got the right idea: don’t park in the bus-turning/ access lay-by, be unobtrusive and I don’t think you’ll have any bother. Enjoy! 

PS  Not sure how jungly it is at the mo but i’d wear trousers at least for the walk in as the brambles and nettles can be savage

 AMorris 18 Apr 2018
In reply to philluu:

Basically yes, access is fine as long as you don't make an absurd racket and/or leave litter at the crag. In all my time climbing there I have never been asked to leave.

Access wise,  don't park in the turning bay. Rather park on the side of the road 20m or so away, it should be obvious where. To access the boulders, walk up the forestry track for a hundred meters ish, for the Darkside boulder, take a right back up a muddy track and round left when the track ends, scramble up the hill for a few minutes and you should see the boulder. From here there are obvious tracks where you can easily access the satellite (a little further up), the cube and the splasher. If you take the track from the cube going away from the boulders you will come upon the best problems in the area on the rift, bread pudding and sliced slug, with bivi buttress slightly up the hill from the slug. However this track is likely to be overwhelmed by brambles at this time of year, which kind of cuts the area in two. With this is mind, for these boulders, instead of taking the muddy track off the forestry track, you should carry on for another hundred meters and scramble up the obvious earthy slope into the forest on the right, this path will lead directly to the rift and bread pudding, from which slug and bivi can be easily accessed.

Like I say, brambles can be an issue during the summer, but only on the paths, the landings are all good and in clearings.

Just as an addition, there are some total classics at many grades which are definitely worth a try:

Ames Games/Golden Bicep - Sit Start (f6C+) - 6C+

Bread Pudding (f5+) - 5+ with a high topout, feels ridiculous until you find the sequence

Bowl Rim (f6A) - 6A again with a slightly high topout, quality knacky arete

Any flake variation on the slug works well too, or any of the traverses.

Hope this helps!

Arthur

 

OP philluu 18 Apr 2018
In reply to AMorris:

Great, thanks very much both of you. Particularly for the recommendations as I was just going to go off the PDF that is floating around.

If either of you two, or anyone else, fancies a Sunday afternoon there then just send me an email through here.

In reply to philluu:

AMorris’ advice is spot on. Just another note on navigation: the path up to rift/ bread pudding from the forestry track is more or less immediately left of an overgrown boulder, up quite a steep bank initially. Would heartily recommend all the up stuff on sliced slug, the traverses are also well worth sampling. 

If I can escape the kids for a few hours i’ll let you know!


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...