Climbed for the first time at Hodge Close today, somewhere I've been intrigued by in the past. Did Sky (6b+), which was an excellent route, but thought it was a bit odd to have been retro-bolted.
Was it supposed to be E2 before it was bolted? Or is it meant to be E2/F6b+ (not a real grade) now it's been bolted. I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the gear potential, but some of it's a crack which could be protected, and then there's bomber gear after the crux for the traverse. There would be a hard, reachy move miles away from any gear, I think.
It seemed that the route might be about E4 if it hadn't been bolted (not E2!). And what a great route it would be! It's a superb F6b+, but why have a fully bolted route somewhere that isn't anything like a sport climbing venue (abbing in 50m from natural anchors, mainly bold trad routes, etc).
Given that Hodge is popular with high standard bold climbers operating around E5, why has this route been numptified so it's easy enough for the likes of me? I really enjoyed it, but it would have been much better as a super-classic bold E4 I could have built up myself for and done at the brink of psychological and physical destruction, branding an HD memory into my psyche forever...
With all this said, I'm not massively keen on going back. Malice looks amazing, but I'm not doing that unless I'm convinced it's been done a few times recently. Behind the Lines was rank today, damp, loose and covered in shite. Big Mirror looked like a massive shit-up too, overgrown on the top traverse. Limited Edition looks good, but the database says E4 6b (=F6c??)...maybe a better venue for the E5 climber?