So in summary this is a great spot particularly at the grades M6-7 and M9+ and upwards.
Edit: I should have added the best thing about The Works is that OK its a series of industrial holes in the ground but yesterday was at times truly beautiful.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
A Day at The Works
Had a trip with Jon yesterday to the new dry tooling venue in the Lakes 'The Works'. After a full days dry tooling your body ends up being more wrecked than pretty much any other form of climbing but as Jon said the thing that was most bruised by The Works was our egos! This place has tough tough grades. Still congratulation to Brian, Paddy and all the folk who helped develop a place which has the potential to be the UK's best dry tooling venue (its pretty close to that already).
This isn't actually one of the climbing areas, I think it's occasionally still worked on but that cave entrance is about 20m high and wide and 40m deep - could be the home for Greg and Andy's next M25s!
We started in Bakestone Quarry, which seems to get a lot less traffic than The Works proper. We did the red line - Outside Leg a challenging and varied M5 (felt like a pumpy M6 to us). The yellow line is Outfield a very worthwhile looking M6.
This is The Fang an M8 that I worked the moves on including my first proper figure four. It was the best route I tried during the day and one I'm motivated to get fit for.
We then went to the industrial sector at The Works proper, the area that has probably seen the most traffic. This is Time and a Half the crag warm up and given M4! Considering this is pretty much the lowest grade in dry tooling it's crazy - solid M6. The guys climbing are local guns 'The Two Petes'
It's The Two Petes again this time on Stein Pull an M6 on the industrial sector. We didn't do this one but did do Overtime M6 and Grand Design M6+, both of which were good.
This is where the wilderbeast roam! The cave is much steeper and bigger than it looks. The lines are 20-25m long each and range from 60 to 80 degrees overhanging. Left to right: (yellow) Bloodline M10, (red) Blood Donor M9+, (blue) First Blood M9+, (green) Project M impressive.
One of the Petes on Bloodline (no fig 4s for this young beast) "It's only got one hard move on it, about M8" Luckily Petes arms are much better developed than his ability to grade!
So in summary this is a great spot particularly at the grades M6-7 and M9+ and upwards.
Edit: I should have added the best thing about The Works is that OK its a series of industrial holes in the ground but yesterday was at times truly beautiful.
So in summary this is a great spot particularly at the grades M6-7 and M9+ and upwards.
Edit: I should have added the best thing about The Works is that OK its a series of industrial holes in the ground but yesterday was at times truly beautiful.
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3 comments:
Hi Ian, any idea how do the grades compare to Newtyle or White Goods?
I'm not sure as I suspect I'm very unfit at the moment so am finding things tougher than I have in the past. I've visited Newtyle twice, climbing the easier lines which I think were given M6, and working the moves on the easiest line in the big cave Fast & Furious? which was given M10, I could do all the moves straight away except for the crux which is usually done with a fig four. This route seemed very doable and it wouldn't surprised if this now gets graded by Greg and the regulars at M9 or 9+. White Goods is the place I'm most familiar with and to me the grades seem benchmark there. Almost all the Works routes I did would get a grade harder at White Goods.
Thanks Ian. I've climbed at White Goods a fair bit over the last couple of years as its relatively local, but only made the long drive upto Newtyle once. I find the hooks at White Goods more tenuous / technical, but Newtyle seems much more powerful.
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