UKC

Despite being popular for sport climbing and deep-water-soloing, bouldering in Portland has never had many followers other than the usual bunch of committed locals. The development of bouldering venues lagged behind sport climbing and deep-water-soloing, but thanks to an intense period of developing and documenting Portland is now ringed by venues that offer a diverse selection of settings and problems. This article takes you on an anticlockwise tour of the island.

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In reply to UKC Articles:

Excellent intro article on Portland Bouldering. My first trip was a total dud as info was sparse then and finding problems was a chore until the excellent Dorset Bouldering book was published (seriously a great guide to the area). The bouldering around the Portland Bill and the lighthouse is excellent mostly because of its breadth of difficulty. You can take newbies to Mugley's Plain and then crank on harder stuff near Pulpit Rock while non-climbing peeps can take in the sun. Traffic is a bummer through Weymouth so I highly recommend the leave very early and leave very late approach. For rest days, nothing beats mackerel fishing off the Dorset cost (and think of all the anti-inflammatory properties of oily fish!).

In reply to UKC Articles:

Thanks for the heads up! Will have to add this to the list of books to buy!

In reply to UKC Articles:

What a cool looking feature in photo 4! Wonder when it will become a stack (again?) ?

In reply to Michael Gordon:

My grandad was a Portlander and knew the guy who cut steps on the slab to the top of the stack (Pulpit Rock). Amazing feature.

In reply to UKC Articles:

As a fan of bouldering in the Cuttings, I bought the Dorset Bouldering Guide, and I'm not disappointed. I Ventured out on to West Weares, and had a fantastic time, Hallelujah arete is indeed fantastic, as well as Uber Creep, well worth a visit. Looking forward to visiting the other areas and escaping the boulderfield.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi Ben,

A great article and beautifully illustrated. I particularly love Steve's, "Is the barn door gonna slam shut?" expression. It probably didn't slam shut on him and will on me!

Am so glad you got this guidebook out. Everybody's raving about it.

Best wishes,

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:

The guide is fantastic and Portland bouldering away from the Cuttings boulderfield should finally get the recognition it deserves. Still plenty to add in lots of areas if new routing (probleming?) is your bag.
Did a few bits this summer, some of the stuff in the Obelisk area near Portland Bill is fantastic if you are after easier problems Angel Dust (f4+) & Buffy's Groove (f5) are superb.
Mick, the barn door won't even creak on you, it's a lovely problem, but very generously graded as a total punter like myself managed to onsight it!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Great article Ben, and outstanding guidebook.

I hope I find time to try it out as I'm home for the week before Christmas.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Honestly looking at that first photo....what's the point? You've just carried a pad in an extra couple of hundred metres after the obvious bolted climbs for something that's about 2m tall.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

The same could be said for Stanage plantation.

In reply to Morgan Woods:


Err... it's West Weares, isn't it - unless I'm greatly mistaken (always a distinct possibility)? If so, you've just contoured sideways on the path at the end of Chesil Beach. It's a really pleasant meander for some fun within a few minutes of the pub (The Cove). And the scenery's fantastic. We often go there just for a walk in the evening.

I suspect that many people simply want pleasant bouldering in lovely surroundings. If some of it's a little trivial, who cares? It's still great fun. A lot of bouldering in other areas (West Yorkshire? Heresy!) is trivial. Who cares, if you're having fun?

Conversely folk wanting to do harder routes on Portland often get shut down by stopper moves on short, hard sections which can be the meat of the route. A good place to train specifically for these may well be bouldering on the same type of rock and the same type of holds.

Food for thought...

Mick

P.S. Many thanks, Ivan. I've vaguely known about many of the areas but Ben and his mates have done the hard work, scouting them out, clearing landings as best one can, grading 'em, writing 'em up. I really have no excuse any longer!

I'm sure Mick won't mind me saying that he was cranking f7A/V6 on Sunday after, I think, not bouldering for more than a decade!!!

In reply to Marcus:

Well trumped by your own two V6s and a V7 - at 63 too! (Do folk that age really climb? I guess we'll both find out tonight.) Seriously, the more I think about it, the more we both owed to the Robin O'Leary factor. People argue endlessly here about the usefulness of climbing coaching but Robin's ability to tell us what we were doing wrong and what we needed to do right was utterly uncanny.

You climb for nearly 50 years, think you know stuff and then suddenly realise you simply don't know what you need to know to progress. That, for me, was the big lesson from Robin.

Looks like we need to follow Ben's bouldering bible on the quest for power. And it'll be fun anyway. We can be cool boulderers!

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:

Yes, but I have been bouldering from time to time. I'd be lucky to get up a V0 if I was like you and hadn't bouldered for 10 years or more.

I am biased but Robin is very, very good at picking out even little flaws in a person's climbing and explaining how to correct them.

BTW there's a good picture of you on Relativity on the OldGuysCan website http://oldguyscan.com under the Rock Climbing/Bouldering heading. (Click to enlarge).

Good Face!

See you later.

Marcus