I heard yesterday that the bottom section of T Rex now resides in the sea. Anyone seen this?
Interesting, this is the first I've heard of it and judging by the logbooks it hasn't seen a whole lot of activity this year. With a bit of luck some of the people climbing in Wen Zawn will be able to offer comment. Shame if it has, because that move getting in/out of the chimney was truly unforgettable.
Main problem is T Rex has been on my ‘must do’ list for years. A classic of the genre
I hope it's not now extinct too!
If you do it and don't mind not doing the original, Metal Guru (E4 6a) is - in my eyes - a better route/line, as it follows the corner in its entirety and adds a whole lot more climbing (and an extra grade).
Maybe a meteorite did for it?
I was talking to someone who did Dream yesterday. They said it looked like the flake below the traverse had gone, big rock scar.
Is there any further news on this? I was hoping to try the route this year I haven't been down to the first pitch yet, how big is the flake in question?
I've not seen the scar myself. Need a trip to Wen Zawn to check it out
It should look like this, Paul, ( from UKC photos for "Wen" )
T Rex climbs the groove just right of the climber and hand traverses right about a few metres below the climber.
Edit Photo disappeared on posting
Photo too large to copy in, try "alaan " photos.
www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=94311
Ah no! That would be a real tragedy - a real welsh old school classic, historic route
Yes definitely collapsed and more to follow, went to do it today without knowing of this.
Photo to follow
Saw a photo today and it looks like the whole chimney had collapsed! Such a shame, was an unforgettable route. Really glad I went back for metal guru last year. Might still be possible to get into the upper corner from the left?
So what's the situation is it unclimbable now?
Thanks for the update.
Sad times, it was only the other day that I was recommending the route to someone. Think that transition from chimney to layback ranked as one of the most unorthodox moves I've ever done.
It's also another Extreme Rock route that is now unclimbable (at least in its original state)...
Photo of the collapse on Si Panton's twitter feed
https://twitter.com/SimonPanton1
W
bugger. Another remind to not sit around!! another tick lost
Quite timely for me, as I walked into the Dubh Loch this weekend having forgotten that Cougar had fallen down in 2012. What an idiot...
Cue a 'Lost Rock' article Rob? A run-down of Britain's best routes that are now rubble...!
There probably is an article in it, although I'm a wee bit short on time to write it currently. Still, that's not to say I can't start drafting something, so here's a few to get us started:
T-Rex/Metal Guru would (now) be on the list, as would Romanesque (E3 5c) on The Green Bridge of Wales, which fell down in October last year.
Further back we've obviously got the two rock falls at Creag an Dubh Loch that wiped out the top pitch of The Giant (Summer) (E3 6a) and P4 on Cougar (E3 5c). There's also the famous rockfall on Parallel Gully B (V 5) at Lochnagar nearby, which transformed the famous chimney pitch into a more 'infamous' thin ice corner.
Deer Bield Buttress (E1 5a) is another famous one for having fallen down, not least because of it made ticking Hard Rock that bit harder. Whilst we're on the topic of the Lakes, there's also the somewhat ominous rockfall in the making that is Castle Rock of Triermain, with its house sized block being alarmingly close to tipping point.
Sure there's a load of others, but there's a few to get us started
Fandango at Tremadog, for a good part of the summer the heavily chalked layback flake was passed on the way up to the crag.
Chris
In Hard Rock there is also Coronation St and Central Buttress on Scafell.
One concern I have this year is that following the severe winter conditions a lot of low crags will have seen freeze/thaw that they don't usually get a may be looser than usual as a result - some of the inland limestone for example.
> Fandango at Tremadog, for a good part of the summer the heavily chalked layback flake was passed on the way up to the crag.
Ah well now then... I pulled into the parking spot at Carreg Hyll Drem to find it somewhat blocked by a large (about a metre long by 40cm) fang of rock complete with very chalky hand holds either side of it. It was the fang that you used to get hold of with both hands and lean out on to make one of the long steps across leftwards on the classic Girdle Traverse. The very Girdle Traverse that I used to solo just about every time I was in Wales when it rained, and on which I made as much use as I could of said fang...
I have some photos taken on the second pitch of Deer Bield Buttress after the third pitch had disappeared, and maybe some of Stiff Little Fingers at Hodge Close.
Someone (Al Evans for a start) must have pictures of Yankee Doodle. Controlled Burning, anyone?
> Quite timely for me, as I walked into the Dubh Loch this weekend having forgotten that Cougar had fallen down in 2012. What an idiot...
What you needed was to have done Cougar in 2000, when it was still in one piece, Rob....
BTW, did you find our abseil escape route from Giant, (which I think is how it is now written up in the recent guidebook?).
Neil
> In Hard Rock there is also Coronation St and Central Buttress on Scafell.
What fell off Coronation Street, and when? Thanks.
Ornithology (S 4a) involved climbing a tree, which for the last few years has been slowly rotting on the ground below.
The New Foggy Dew (S 4a) replaced an earlier route (The Foggy Dew VDiff) that fell down a few decades ago, and itself fell down shortly after we climbed it in 2009. It's been reclimbed since (The Brand New Foggy Dew VS 4b), but the cracks are still slowly widening...
Mad Dog Corner '..a brilliant E3 5c' @Gull Zawn, Guernsey fell down the winter after it was climbed. All was not in vain though, its remains allowed the wave-polished impossible starts to many routes in the back of the zawn to be bypassed.
Bobby's Groove on the slate, Conscientious Objector at St Govans
> What fell off Coronation Street, and when? Thanks.
Part of the Shield. It was embedded in the grass one morning - at exactly the spot where the belayer normally stands for the first pitch of that and the VS (I forget the name) that our party were due to climb - with more on the road. Apparently someone (a climber) had parked their car in the space below the route, and their bonnet had received a delivery of rock when the leader (!) holding that part of the flake at the time (!) had let go of it - he was by then dangling on the rope and being held by his belayer who was thankfully well to one side. I was told that the route (what was left of it) was completed successfully.
Formula One on Lundy.
The first pitch of the Devil’s Limekiln on Lundy is buried under rubble but the second pitch is still climbable (or at least it was a few years back), not sure if that counts...
All small fry compared to the Dru!
I recall the T Rex chimney being a weird Gogarth skwirmfest tussle (aren’t they all?) and the layback being a go-for-it pumpfest but remember nothing of the transition other than there being an in situ nut to calm the nerves.
...... oh and of course the majestic Yankee Doodle - RIP (Rest in Pieces),
Chris
> There probably is an article in it, although I'm a wee bit short on time to write it currently.
Too busy milking this good weather on the Lakeland high crags I hope
Public Enemy is another classic that fell down.
Don't forget Wraith at Mother Scareys
Dont forget (or maybe try to) Valhalla at the back of the quarry at Burbage.
This has developed into quite an interesting thread. it is inducing feeling of frustration and nostalgia in equal measure.
Frustration for all the classics I am never going to get a go at and nostalgia (and not a little smug self satisfaction) for all the ones I have climbed before gravity spoiled the show.
> Don't forget Wraith at Mother Scareys
Wraith is still there and excellent, it’s just lost one hold, the right side of the crack
And who can forget The Gouffle Connection, Warton Main? Ah right, everyone then.
It really is something to climb that arete and think to yourself 'this used to be a jamming crack', makes the mind boggle doesn't it?
With regards to this article, that to some extent appears to be writing itself, you've potentially won me over with all the good ideas + suggestions so leave it with me, but keep the suggestions coming - they're great!
Wraith used to go at E1 5a/b - a magnificent crack the right rib of which fell down in 1991 or 1992 from memory. It was reclimbed at E3 a year or so later I believe and is still a great climb.
Perhaps notionally relevant, but i think its looks as though Another Day, Another Dog and The Barbarians are coming at Trevallen suffered a big rockfall at the bottom which had left a loose and very hard looking approach to the climbs. I didn't get pictures and forgot to mention, but I noticed a month or so back.
Somebody else maybe able to confirm or get a pic...
From the south, plenty of attrition, quality might be a bit off.
Portland lost most of a crag the other year.
Fairy cave quarry, the e1 near robs crack
Tatra swanage., in fact the top of most swanage routes might be on the list.
Yellow wall avon
> Portland lost most of a crag the other year.
If we're going large, a big bit of Brownspear Point fell down taking classics like Berlin and Mainsail with it, and most of the best bits of Exmansworthy slumped seawards some decades ago.
Which reminds me, a whole section of crag with a dozen routes went 10-20 years ago at St Govan’s East.
The easy start to Terrier’s Tooth at Chair Ladder got smashed up by the storms a few years back.
Return of the Natives at Mewsford Point, Pembroke is no longer with us, also was an Extreme Rock tick.
Pat Littlejohn and Johnny Dawes reclimbed it this summer at a grade of XS 5b, looked like a real choss fest, Johnny's slight hyperventilation indicated it wasn't his usual forte but he seemed to enjoy it!
I think you mean St Govan's, not St Govan's East. Apparently it made so much noise it was heard in the pub.
Marsden Pinnacle, Sunderland's foremost sea-stack: lost to the North Sea years ago now.
Hasn’t a chunk of compass point at Bude become part of the beach?
and of course the flake you used to put a runner behind then swarm up on One Step.. and the first pitch of Merlin.
Having soloed CB on Scafell many years ago the thought of the flake coming out always gives me the heebee geebies
And then there are those routes/crags which have (it seems) always had a question-mark over their longevity - including Trowbarrow's Main Wall
The Illinois Enema Bandit in Bus Stop!
A very silly route but fun! Now completely absent.
Wraith (E2 5c)is awesome. I'd swap an e1 jamming crack for an e3 arete any day. A good deal.
Crack in the Sea at Carn barra.
There are a bunch of pics of Yankee Doodle on UKC...
https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/item.php?crag=211&route=Yankee+Doodle
It's fairly disturbing when you look back and realise how many things you've done which subsequently collapsed.
Stiff Little Fingers at Hodge has been mentioned above, it was already Stiff Little Thin Hands when I did it mid 80's.
Vladimir and the Beast in the Leap which went early 90s I think?
Deer Bield Chimney which went along with the buttress (the left wall is still there).
Parallel B I did after the first rockfall (2001-ish) which made the chimney a bit shallower but didn't really change its character, the rest dropped off a couple of years later.
Formula One etc. on Lundy, also Controlled Burning which I failed on miserably on a scorching afternoon sometime in the late 90s.
I'm sure there's more...
Oh - and King Kong on Wintours Leap.
I guess there's several tiers of 'fallen down' developing, the first being completely fallen down (i.e. unclimbable) and the second being something fallen off, which alters the feel - and often the grade - of the route.
King Kong is a good example of that, as is Coronation Street, Central Buttress etc...
> I guess there's several tiers of 'fallen down' developing, the first being completely fallen down (i.e. unclimbable) and the second being something fallen off, which alters the feel - and often the grade - of the route.
Some parts of Ogmore get re-set more often than most climbing walls...
One of the most memorable routes I ever did was The Hunchback at Ogmore back in the 1980s. IIRC weaved a highly unlikely route through some massive roofs which have since apparently collapsed.
We could descend to the level of the pebbles on Three Pebble Slab, but then this thread would never end
Didn’t the excellent VS round the corner to the right of Wraith fall down some years ago?
Yes, Crithmum. It's still climbable but harder and looser.
I think the St Govan's rockfall was about 15 years ago...? It took out Public Enemy, Crime of the Century and Crime & Punishment, plus Conscientious Objector further left as already mentioned. I only vaguely remember this, but going off the big marker pen red crosses I scored through my old rockfax guide at the time.
Real shame about T Rex... I was hoping to tussle with that infamous chimney-to-layback move this year.
Conscientious Objector went about a decade before the Public Enemy rockfall. I climbed PE about 6 months beforehand, the top half of the route was absolutely terrifying and I only got up it because there was a huge storm about to hit (it was the day after the Boscastle flood) which hurried me on. Nothing was stable at all above the first belay.
When I didn't know any better, I used to think Pembroke was great, but I have come to the conclusion in recent years that much of it is tottering death traps.
Yes! You’re absolutely right, the PE and CO rockfalls were at different times. Apologies, I mis-remembered when I reached across to my old guide and saw the scorings out were in identical pen.
That does sound a harrowing ascent you had... :o
Looks like the first 10m (maybe 15m - hard to tell) has gone. I will upload photo once I work out how to do this!
South-East Pillar (a classic HVS) at Fall Bay on the Gower was another that fell down years ago.
Climbable? Having not been down there I can't quite work out how much/badly it has been affected.
T. Rex Photos:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=312959
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=312958
Jugosaurus? Seeing as T Rex is now extinct... May be it was a meteor strike?
Im glad we got them done Kevin.
The whole green bridge will go at sometime.
I finished the 'Lost Rock' article last night, so pending feedback from Natalie it should be going live within the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone that offered feedback!
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