Main Buttress offers the best climbing on the Scar. The buttress presents a very compact face guarded at its base by a belt of bulges and overhangs. The rock is good and in many places provides good, natural thread runners.
Although only short, it offers steep, fingery and often strenuous climbing. Route appearances are often deceptive, looking easier and shorter than they are. A stake above the crag provides an anchor for abseil and belaying. Routes are described from left to right as one faces the rock.
The left-hand end of the buttress is scrappy above 5 or 6 metres, whilst below this it is uniformly overhanging. The main challenges here are represented by two cracked breaks.The first break has an undercut edge. 1. Boogey Down 12m E1
Start below the first break.
(6a).
Gain the undercuts and pull over the bulge via a thin vertical crack.
2. Dynamo Hum 12m E4 ***
Start below an obvious thread, 3m right of Boogey Down, where the bulge eases.
(6b).
Extend up and right (thread runner) across the bulge to a good hold. Climb direct to the top.
3. Arty Farty 12m E2 *
Start below the fine slim left-trending groove, one metre right of an embedded block.The groove is guarded by a bulge at head height.
(5c).
Climb the groove till it meets a bulging headwall. Move right and up the corner.
4. Magic's Wand 12m E3 6a *
Artificial in that it shares some holds with the previous route. To the right of Arty Farty is a thin wall, just left of the very obvious groove line of Necromancer.
(6a).
Start as for Necromancer by climbing into the groove. This is quit almost immediately in favour of a very shallow left-trending gangway in the thin wall on the left. Finish leftwards, through bulges. Excellent.
5. Necromancer 12m E1 **
Start below the most obvious grooveline 2 metres right of Arty Farty.
(5b).
Climb the slim groove to a thread runner. Finish up the square-cut, hanging corner (good).
Three metres right of Necromancer, the face has a shallow, but large diamond-shaped feature at mid-height. The left-hand side of the feature is unclimbed but the right hand side provides:
6. Roxanne Shante 12m E3 **
Start at the obvious line 3 metres right of Necromancer.
(6a).
Climb to the first thread, well-protected but thought-provoking. Continue past another thread runner and finish directly over a roof (care with holds!).
Chicken Variation E3
(6a). Climb the normal line to the second thread and escape rightwards to the tiny rowan tree.
To the right of the last climb, the bulges guarding the base of the crag become bigger.
7. Style of the Street 12m E4 ***
This very fine route requires strength in reserve once the initial bulge is overcome. Start at a white pillar just right of a little clean-cut corner.
(6b).
Climb up to and across the roof, past a thread, to a good hold. Reach through for a jug and finish at the tiny rowan tree.
8. Cuttin' Herbie 9m E1 **
Sensational roof climbing at a modest grade. Start just right of Style of the Street below an obvious slanting handrail which cuts through the roof from left to right.
(5b).
Gain a bracket-type hold (thread runner) and make a long reach for jugs above lip. "Rock-over" into a small groove to the left of the rib and finish left at a thread. Abseil off.
Other smaller buttresses have provided a number of short problems. These buttresses are further northwards on the west side of the small valley. An interesting conical hill in the valley has a steep face and may reward some exploration. The woods at the end of the valley, near Fox's Tower, contain the crags of Helbeck Wood. |
