09-Apr-13

A mid-week trip to the Middlesex Fells with Marla, after work.

• Work was annoying, but somehow I was able to sneak out and bike home a bit early… and since Marla had already gotten home by that point, we decide to head out for a bit of rock climbing.
• We leave the house at 5:45, and are parked at the Fells parking area by 6:30. We didn’t even get lost once!
• After hiking in a bit, we have some trouble finding any rock that’s worth setting up… and definitely nothing that I’d want to lead. Everything is either too easy, too wet, or just silly.
• Finally, after wandering deeper into the woods, we find one climb that looks viable! No cracks to place gear into, but other than that it appears to be a clean slab climb, with a scar of quartz running through the middle, up to the top.
  • An anchor is set up top, and a rope is dropped down to the base
  • Unfortunately, there isn’t really much to build an anchor off of, and it takes a while… the rope is first tied into roughly 10min after official sunset at 7:20.
  • We climb it. Not a bad route! It’s fairly easy, but definitely interesting slab climbing. If you use the Dyke of quartz it’s much easier, but sticking to the slabs yielded a neat puzzle.
  • Route name: Ben’s folly
  • Rough route grade: 5.4 with quartz, 5.6 without
• We pull the anchor, coil the rope, and pack up my gear as the sun finishes setting… and we’re back at the car before it’s really dark enough to need headlamps.