UKC

Climbs 101
Rocktype Limestone
Altitude 75m a.s.l
Faces SW

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Mouldy Rain V9 © James Squire

Crag features

A solid limestone cave with fantastic views overlooking the Avon Gorge. Hard eliminate bouldering mainly on pinches or sloping holds with thumb catches. There are many variations and eliminates to be had. Please note, any stars given to problems here are "gollums stars" and serve only to differentiate between problems. Obviously eliminates are never worth any true stars.

The numbered problems feature in the guide produced by the late Ian Hill. A reproduction can be found in the esoteric bouldering guidebook (no longer available on the Climbing Academy website). All Esoteric Bouldering topos can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17d7bTU2ONVSSMPus5tONyydN2QSNMZOq?usp=sharing

Approach notes

Gollum's is not easy to find. The easiest access is from the junction of Percival Road and Clifton Down. Take the right turn up the tarmac footpath that gently curves round to the right as it goes uphill away from the road. Walk straight on up here for 120 m to where a dilapidated metal fence appears on the right hand side of the footpath. Here drop down the steep earth bank on the right and turn left onto an earth track. Follow this for 15 m to a concrete block. Turn right steeply downhill for 30 m and then down and left for another 25 m to a large block of limestone lying on the left of the path. You should be able to see the buttress ahead from here - follow the track left and down again for 20 m. This takes only a couple of minutes from the road.

Can see why people are keen to bring down mattresses to avoid pads, but let’s all learn from the two burnt out mattresses and damage to rock that it is best to lug in the pads each time. Still classic Gollums and the soot will eventually wash off!
derico - 10/Jan/21
Yeah it's a little grim but countless hard and fun eliminates once you see past the setting Reuben's mattresses make a nice addition
ChrisClark1 - 31/May/19
Went there today, a bit of seepage but enough dry holds to climb on. It's a shame about the litter though - next time will bring a bin bag.
reubenrules123 - 07/Mar/18
testing
reubenhf - 23/May/17
Well worth a visit in my opinion. If you can look past the graffiti and rubbish its a lovely spot with some fun (and hard!) problems. I spent a couple hours playing around in the sun this afternoon and will definitely be going back. I cleared up the worst of the rubbish, although some of it looked pretty recent, so no doubt more will appear.
reubenhf - 22/May/17
I've climbed in worse places! Despite what people say it's ok I've enjoyed a few sessions in the cave.
tombeasley - 14/Aug/16
Not great - rubbish and food and crap left. Saddening. Rock very sooty and graffiti. Probably better in warmer months.
KeriV - 01/Jan/15
Been twice in the last week or so and isn't too bad, moved the rubbish to the right hand side of cave, rock and holds seam fine. Well fine apart from graffiti, soot and grease. At least the view is still nice!
Beastly Squirrel - 28/Jul/14
Went down to Gollums cave today to find it in a total state. Some people have been camped out there and have left mattresses, rubbish, sleeping bags etc. They have had fires in the cave two, breaking many of the holds and staining the cave with smoke, so not that great to boulder at any more unfortunately.
George Frisby - 12/Mar/14
Pretty good as for a few sessions for training. Grades can be pretty stiff around the 7A-B range, though this is the best range with a very diverse set of problems. Polished to hell and back so many of the more sloping holds are much harder (some now basically impossible) to hold unfortunately. Thumb Wars wall gets wet around fairly key foot and hand placements during rainy periods. Beware the deeply unsettling in-situ protection and good god do not turn it over...
AMorris - 15/Nov/13
Must come back when I have some muscles. Somebody appears to have moved in -two tents and a cave -Luxury!
leland stamper - 22/Apr/13
somebody cleaned the place up. impressed. was planning to do that at some point since i first came here. but now somebody else did. cool! don't think the current, cleaned-up state will last long though...
pheotleyr - 10/Aug/12
pleased to finally take a look after hearing about it several times over the past few years. Great spot. Did some bouldering but no idea what I ticked.
Stanners - 10/Jan/12
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