In reply to jasonpather:
The rock is not in condition that is reasonable to climb it most years at all between sometime in October and sometime in March/April/May. Bowles is by far the fastest drying crag. Generally it’s not in condition during winter unless it’s been an unusually long dry spell. I would think a week or more of very dry sunny weather for Bowles (with not bad weather before hand) and longer for Harrison’s and even longer for many other crags. Betweeen 2008 and 2014 there was only one winter that was dry enough and it was better than the following summer - which was a wash out. The main issues are that not only is damp sandstone unpleasant to climb as it’s greasy and a lot more sandy, but it’s also far more likely that you will break holds / ribs etc and the outer crust erodes much faster. The rock is already getting pretty trashed so please respect the limited resource that it is and don’t climb it when damp, even if you have made a long journey there. Where it’s good the outer surface is moderately hard, and even in small sections the rock integrity is ok in the core (generally the rock with high iron content like unclimbed wall) but over much of the rock there is no outer crust or it’s very thin and mostly the inner core is pretty much a sandcastle. Once the outer is worn through you basically have very poor rock that easily erodes massive foot scoops etc.
Even many summers the rock doesn’t dry out as much as you’d hope and during wash out summers the majority of the climbs never really dry out in to reasonable condition. It’s one of the problems with the area as there is quite a lot of climbing, and in the mid to higher grades it can be rather good, but generally even in summer only a small number of climbs at a grade are in (which is what I found trying to climb after work in any given week with flexible days attempting to get good conditions)
Portland/Swanage is a much better bet in winter as it’s fast drying, not easily damaged and has a good micro climate.
As a reference I first climbed on this rock at age 12 and as an adult climber have lived close to the area for about 14 years, on and off.....
Post edited at 20:08
