UKC

Well,  Deep Rake is getting very well used, and I had a look around this beast this morning while I was out on the dog walk. Which got me thinking. Is there another Horseshoe lurking around the Peak or did we just get lucky and Horseshoe Quarry just happened to have got all the features to make it a unique national treasure?

The quarry in the pics is as yet undeveloped, but I think it could do with a bit of weathering to settle it down. How long till the first bolts go in?

There's tons of the places dotted around, but access is the issue 🙂

If thats where i think it is 2 climbers have already been kicked out!

Horseshoe quarry and ‘unique national treasure’ in the same sentence.. 😅

Well there was an element of tongue in cheek, but in truth it is one of the most popular venues in the Peak and certainly matches the zeitgeist

So is Alton Towers.

Horseshoe Quarry is like a sacrifical jar of jam left open to keep the wasps away from your picnic!

What, a low point in human history where a global pandemic is a welcome distraction from the impeding destruction of the planet? 

Well, that and bolts.

Totally off topic, but that's a very cute pooch!

This one?.....

It’s like describing a comedian as ‘the next Billy Pearce’. 

Popularity & quality (treasure) are rare bedfellows - think McDonald's, Eastenders, The Daily Mail, Mrs Brown's Boys.......😕 

Another section was climbed on and there were pegs in place but it was back filled about 5 years ago  

 High Rake is a big chossy monster. A few good sections but none of it looks safe to stand under or Abb into.

It's only just been decommissioned and landscaped. You can even Google street view along the track and see the machinery, so quite recent.

It will be backfilled with tailings from the mill as well over the next few years. Part of their permission to mine at Milldam.

Not only access. I'm no expert, although I do come from Leicester so have served my time in chossy quarries, but I read that at some point (1960s?) more powerful explosives started to be used in quarrying that leave the remaining rock in a far more shattered state, so more recently closed quarries are far less likely to be climbable. 

I'm guessing you didn't do the routes on the main wall when their fixed gear was sparse. They definitely weren't Alton Towers back then. If you fell off, you wouldn't die but you could go a long way. There were no lower-offs, just piles of stones on top for you to wind your rope round, as a belay.

Over time, the place has become more popular and better bolted. Is this a retrograde step? Surely not. I can't see the point of scary bolt routes in this day and age.

I didn't give you a dislike but, to be blunt, I find your sneeringly dismissive comment startlingly unhelpful. Fun in the sun? Is that such a bad thing? Not in my view.

Mick

Hi,

yes, I chatted to one of the motocross riders who seem to have turned the bottom of Back Dale Quarry into an X-games course, who told me that Deep Rake would eventually get filled in (not the hole in the ground in the field which is full of F6s).

I was just musing about Horseshoe, which was on my radar in the mid 80s, and popular with the Sheffield crowd. I got roped in to doing some photos for Wild Country, leading Shot Yer Bolt (6b+) multiple times. I think it was E3 5c back then and I definitely remember it feeling a bit spicy. I wouldn’t have imagined that a less challenging bolting policy would transform the place. I went for a beer at the Eyre Arms last Saturday, and got talking to two climbers who were out in their camper, and had come over to the peak to climb at  Horseshoe Quarryhad also done some routes at Horse-Thief Quarry and were heading up to Deep Rake the next day. The previous weekend they had spent at  Harpur Hill Quarry. They don’t do trad, and only Boulder indoors, but seemed to be enjoying their climbing tremendously. Who knew?

Hi Mick, didn’t see your post before I posted. Yes, the main wall was quite exciting back then, and some of those boulders at the top became recognised belays.

High rake looks like it might be ok, but will takes years to settle down and then it looks like good walls above choss or vice versa.

I hope you would exempt the Rainbow Slab (and other similar slate classics) from that generally ok statement?

I know you may well know more about this Simon given your family connection to quarrying in the area. I take it from looking at old maps that the original Deep Rake was filled in? I assume its under the stoney field before the farm house and High Rake is the one beyond. Have you ever looked in the small workings around the back of the house? 

Any idea if a local name was given to the Stemple wall workings?

The sort of cheap jam you get in little plastic container in hotels

Hi Kristian,

The Stemple wall workings are part of Deep Rake which interestingly you can see the end of in Backdale Quarry. Its quite strange they left that part of the Rake unfilled . You are right that Deep Rake is now mostly filled in and is grazing land.

In the late 80's early 90's we had a look up there and there was a very impressive wall below the track that was at least 50 mtrs to the bottom and had obvious climbing potential. They had used a dragline to extract the Fluorspar (which my Uncle worked on)  so the wall was smooth (similar to Deep Rake Stemple Wall) At that time they had not blasted the walls as they have now done in High Rake so the potential for climbing was very good.

Not long after though Laportes started backfilling and that was the end of it. Pretty sure another wall was climbed on with some decent trad routes by a lad from Castleton but they are under the Earth now as well.

I have not had a look down the hole near the farm yet...

I'm in a hole at the moment... 

Yes, of course I would exempt them. Have climbed on the Rainbow and elsewhere on slate, to E4, in the early 1990s. The same ethos applied: don't fall off! But the place has a separate culture and tradition to Horseshoe quarry. For instance, Litany Against Fear used to have three drooping pegs on the crux. They were replaced by one bolt - and I'm pretty sure that this would have had the approval of the first ascentionist. Just one example of progress, in my view.

Mick

Hi Mick, 

Yes, it was certainly a very different experience back in the late 80’s, very spaced pegs and the odd wire placement and possibly a dodgy friend in the top break. But it’s nice to have the bolts now in my dotage.....

Chris