UKC

Does anyone know what the longest (in height) climb is in the UK? So far the highest I've heard of is to the right of The Quarryman, and is ~130m!

Longhope Route (E7 6c)

How about Cuillin Ridge Traverse (Summer) (VD)?

There is a girdle traverse of Ben Nevis that is pretty long.

Not sure the Cuillin Ridge counts as it's mostly walking/scrambling.

The Dubh's Ridge must have the most height gain. 1km.

Sorry, forgot the !

The Long Climb on Ben Nevis is 420m.

Big John is same vertical height as LongHope but is longer as weaves about a bit more

I agree - the Dubhs Ridge (M) going from sea level to nearly 1000m must be the answer.

Tower Ridge, Ben Nevis - 600m

James

Those things in twll mawr (right of quarryman) are the longest sport routes in the UK. There are much longer trad routes around. 

I'd say the Dubhs is dubious as a longest 'climb', quite a lot of it is walking or easy scrambling.

The longest will definitely be girdles and coastal traverses, but to determine the longest up-climb you could impose a rule along the lines of the height gain should be greater than the distance travelled on the horizontal axis, i.e. at least 45 degrees steep on average, which would exclude the likes of the Dubhs or Tower Ridge.

St John's Head or some of the other giant cliffs on Foula seem likely candidates.

And it can be increased to at least Severe by taking a direct line up the slabs to the right of the usual furrow.

Ron’s Girdle Traverse at Stanage. E5 6b, 5km........ Edit: Just read you wanted the longest in height..........

Ron's Girdle Traverse (Stanage Edge) (E5 6b)

Mallory's Slab / Great Chimney, 282m, v.diff, Y Lliwedd, Snowdon.

Nice day out, packed lunch and coffee brewed half way up. Tops out on Snowdon Horseshoe so finished via the summit and ended with Big Jim breakfast in Pete's Eats.

It is quite a difficult question to answer, most of the responses are quoting route length rather than height gained.

The cliffs of St Johns Head are 346m high, St Kilda 426m high.

Tower Ridge has been mentioned and could be a good call as it gains 600m.

If you are looking for something more recognisable as a face climb rather than a ridge the The Long Climb on the Ben must be a good shout.

On the criterion of height gain alone it's hard to argue with the Dubhs, which goes from virtually sea level to 944m.

Mallory's Slab & Groove, Western Buttress, Sron na Ciche? Over a 1000ft! All climbing, no scrambling.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/sron_na_ciche-780/mallorys_slab_an...

Think you're thinking of Tân y Ddraig (7a). It's supposed to be the longest multi-pitch sport climb. Not the longest climb full stop, though.

If the rules of this game include being a graded climb in a published rock climbing guide then I think the winner will be the Exmoor Sea Traverse (30,000 feet; E2)

The Chasm on the Buachaille, 450m

If The Chasm counts then Dalness Chasm further round is even longer at 500m, and Clachaig Gully longer still, but they all have quite a lot of walking/scrambling/scree between the pitches.

As said before, if pure height gain is the only criterion the Dubhs has to win, but if you only count sustained routes then I'd go with the St John's Head ones.

Crab Crawl (IV) on Creag Meagaidh is listed as 2400m, but it's a girdle traverse.

the Boulder Ruckle traverse in Swanage is 1278 metres and 67 pitches. Called Wonderland. 

Wonderland hasn’t been climbed as continuous route though (and it’s a massive sandbag ).

Isn’t Stanage just one large hold?

People always say the answer to this is Surgeon's Gully on Ben Nevis, which I believe comes in two halves, the first of which is described as 450 metres. I suspect it's rather unfashionable, though.

jcm

I'd imagine Wonderland would be the longest continuous climb in Britain, given other sideways things like the Crab Crawl, Exmoor traverse and Stanage traverse all have a lot of easy ground and walking.

I still find it amazing Wonderland hasn't had a continuous ascent or even a second  munro style ascent. 

The individual sections are doable by many climbers. The whole thing in a push, an alpine challenge for the talented. 

And it's only two hours from London! 

i saw the topo for this. would be an outrageous adventure...

It's the sort of question that comes up regularly and the answer greatly depends on your definitions of what counts.

Some of the traditional if not perhaps precisely correct answers for the longest (non-girdle) extreme rock climbs outside Scotland have often been:

Wales - White Slab (E2 5c) c. 177 metres

England - Central Buttress (E1 5b) c. 122 metres

Southern England - Coronation Street (WW) (E1 5b) c. 115 metres

Northern Ireland - An Bealach Rúnda (E1 5b) c. 112 metres

Whether on not they are precisely correct answers is probably secondary to the fact that they are all mega classic routes that are aspirational and relatively accessible goals. 

It would probably require a team ascent e.g me and you start then two other abseil down to take over while we sleep then we go down again to finish the job off. 
We could do the Hobson Moor traverse 67 times as training. 

Wow, I guess I never realised this (and probably never thought much about it), but there really are no big mountain/seacliff crags at all outside of Scotland!

Also, can I claim a new record for the most height gain in a climb in the UK by starting my Dubh Ridge climb at the bottom of loch Coruisk? ;P

Only if you used the same footwear all the way 😁

According to my Lliwedd Guide Avalanche/Red Wall/Longlands, which I think should be regarded as one route despite the three parts, is 980 ft (300 m) and on the Lleyn, Avernus is 820 ft (250 m). Both of these comfortably beat White Slab for Wales so there are bigger mountain crags and sea cliffs in Wales. The big ones are just not generally steep enough for long extremes.

Gingerbeard, E3, that starts below Fantan B and joins it, is 185 m incuding the finish up Fantan B so this probably (just) beats White Slab as an extreme?

I did Avernus in the 1990s with Andy Newton and a 15 year old Will Perrin. Thankfully it was bone dry. Very easy technically but rather tense ledge-shuffling. Paul (Williams) wrote it up as mostly only VS but then gave the game away with something like a three page description. (As somebody astutely noted, you could tell how Paul found things by the length of the description.)

I remember Paul's conclusion was something like, 'come down the side of the hill and collapse in your car!' This we did. When Will and I got back to Jim's, we were ravenous. Jim made sarnies as fast as he could. We demolished them even faster.

A day which, in retrospect, I wish could have lasted forever. A bit scary at the time, mind.

Mick

New Mills still needs a full midway girdle I think?