Beacon Hill
Last week I was working in Lutterworth, and the wife had a baby shower to go to on the Sunday in the area, so I decided to find somewhere to climb.
Leicestershire isn't too well endowed with climbing, and when I lived there we used to always head further afield, but I decided to give Beacon Hill a try as it was close, and looked like the best option in the circumstances.
I paid £2.50 to get into the carpark, which was a bit annoying, and parked up. Wandering up to the first crag, it was apparant that the rock, which is apparantly Hornstone was horrendously polished in places, and unnervingly greasy.
It reminded me of the polish at Hutton Roof. Actually, the routes were not too dissimilar either, mainly beinjg easy trad solos. I wouldn't really describe it as a bouldering venue as it does in the guide as most of the routes are pretty easy and the harder ones have a definite trad feel about them.
After looking at the summit crag, I moved down to crag number 4 which had a nice couple of problems, the best of which Bow VD, giving some nice moves. Then, moving back up to summit crag I climbed all of the easy routes hereabouts, Prop VD, Is there a better way S4a, Marine D, Fire S4a, Shaft D, and then moved round the corner I climbed Slippery slabs VD.
By this point it was getting dark, and we needed to get back up to Bolton too, so I left, picked the better half up and we headed back.
All in all it was quite an enjoyable afternoon, soloing about -I've never climbed on Hornbeam before but it's quite limestoney really. Shame about the polish.
As for Leicestershire rock, it appears there are a few other crags in the area so they may well be in for a visit if I happen to be passing through again...
Leicestershire isn't too well endowed with climbing, and when I lived there we used to always head further afield, but I decided to give Beacon Hill a try as it was close, and looked like the best option in the circumstances.
I paid £2.50 to get into the carpark, which was a bit annoying, and parked up. Wandering up to the first crag, it was apparant that the rock, which is apparantly Hornstone was horrendously polished in places, and unnervingly greasy.
It reminded me of the polish at Hutton Roof. Actually, the routes were not too dissimilar either, mainly beinjg easy trad solos. I wouldn't really describe it as a bouldering venue as it does in the guide as most of the routes are pretty easy and the harder ones have a definite trad feel about them.
After looking at the summit crag, I moved down to crag number 4 which had a nice couple of problems, the best of which Bow VD, giving some nice moves. Then, moving back up to summit crag I climbed all of the easy routes hereabouts, Prop VD, Is there a better way S4a, Marine D, Fire S4a, Shaft D, and then moved round the corner I climbed Slippery slabs VD.
By this point it was getting dark, and we needed to get back up to Bolton too, so I left, picked the better half up and we headed back.
All in all it was quite an enjoyable afternoon, soloing about -I've never climbed on Hornbeam before but it's quite limestoney really. Shame about the polish.
As for Leicestershire rock, it appears there are a few other crags in the area so they may well be in for a visit if I happen to be passing through again...
Sorry, was going to lend you the guide. Remind me next time we meet up.
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