Month: May 2004

Well after the day of bouldering over in Kentmere we very nearly didn’t go again. After being completely disheartened by our complete crapness I plucked up the courage to advocate an small trip after a half day walk.

We walked up to Crinkle Crags, along near Langdale so the boulder of choice was obviously the Langdale boulder. We’d seen a sign saying it was to be laser scanned the following tuesday so went to see what all the fuss was about.

Turned out to be a good session, completeing most of the V0 problems. Particularly enjoyable was the bottom boulder, with 2 excellent problems on the large face and two more on the top face.

So maybe there is a future for me in the bouldering world after all.
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Lakes Bloc for a partial guide to the Langdale Boulder and Rockfax website for a miniguide (£2.50).

Well after the nightmare that was Badger Rock – we thought we’d give the ‘Little Font’ area just along the path a quick look before giving up on the entire day.

Turned out to be slightly more fun than Badger Rock, with a couple more problems I could at least start on.

The landings where a different type of bad from Badger Rock, some with very close pine trees to hit on the way down and others with large rocks sticking into the air just where your mat should be. Plus some of the higher boulders had been taken over by large colonies of flies!

Managed a couple of the V0’s on the Pine Stone but couldn’t get some of the others which seemed to indicate sitting starts (boy am I crap at sitting starts!)

Maybe I should just give up on this whole bouldering lark, nah, must get stronger!

Check out Lakes Bloc for topo guide.

Well, we took my new bouldering mat out for its first test drive, on holiday in the Lakes and inspired by walking past the Badger Rock boulder near Kentmere last time we where in the Lakes we set off for a day of bouldering.

This turned up a number of facts:

1) Badger Rock is flippin massive – at least to me it was. Almost all of the problems could be classified as highball in my opinion.
2) The landings at Badger Rock are really bad – not sharp, but on about 45 degree angles, meaning you might land on the mat but then roll half way down the hill – thats if the mat will stay still long enough and not slide itself!
3) Either the grades in that Topo are really hard or I can’t boulder for toffee (more on this later but I think its the later)

Anyway, we kept going for a bit, managed about 1 V0 problem (problem 20), chickened out on the crack on the north face (problem 19 – an easy!)

Complete washout!
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Check out Lakes Bloc for topo guide.