Classic Scottish Boulder Problems No. 4

Chris Fryer on The Peel Sessions - V4 6b Glen Clova

The Peel Sessions V4 6b Glen Clova

Though better known for the excellent trad cragging, no self-respecting trad merchant should pass this problem by if in the area. If you can flash it, you should be well good for E4 cruxes - it is the obvious leaning wall above the road on Glen Clova's biggest boulder. An excellent landing means you can start this at sit-level and fall off as many times as you wish at any point... a couple of brisk power moves get you off your bum, then a tricky press move to the left allows a good incut up right...now comes a decision, either wimp out right on nearby jugs, or commit to the big move to a poor left hand-hold just below the lip. If you manage to hold it, keep your technique steady and mantle over the top. Sorting your feet position for the crux lunge is crucial (try a heel-hook on the sloper if you're feeling weak). If you're strong, you might want to try cross-handed... it's hard either way.

Comments

Anonymous said…

The way I originally finished was; from the "poor left hand hold" (obvious from the chalk in the photo) pull up and right to a sloper and then slap left for an OK hold on the lip, matching this and moving slightly left. Other methods may arise if an effort is made at cleaning some of the other holds. I though it V4 from standing, Dominic Kehoe probably did the first ascent from sitting and reckoned V5. Just one of plent of gems (climbed and unclimbed) lurking in Clova.

BETA ALERT

One the way to the poor left hand hold is a tiny crimp that makes the move slightly easier, but the probelm has been done with and without it.

11:59 am

Anonymous said…

Quality Problem.
This is the way i did it i think...

Grab the poor left hand hold with my right, then move all the way through to the good hold below the lip with my left. Its harder than the way described above, but it feels alot better, no need for matching. doing it this way from the sitter felt around V5, altough i was severly hung over that day...

11:57 pm

Plato's Cave

In his famous 'allegory of the cave', the Greek philosopher Plato pondered the artificiality of reality in imagining how we could be fooled into thinking shadows on the wall (i.e. virtual reality) could be seen as 'real' life. I'm paraphrasing, of course. What has this got to do with climbing? Well, I was pondering this myself recently while sitting on an artificial concrete boulder at the new Cuningar Loop bouldering park in Glasgow. Does it really matter that a boulder is made of concrete, surrounded by plantation and skirted with kind gravel traps rather than tree roots and spikey boulders? Isn't the 'real' thing so much better: the isolated erratic bloc deposited by geology's long-term aesthetic artwork? Well, yes, that's entirely up to you, but sometimes the artificial saves the day ... I was scuppered by Glasgow's cross-town traffic and turned back to my local artifice that is Cuningar to climb the blue circuit I had imagined as

Timeline Walks of Scotland #Culbin Sands

The Moray Firth’s sand-bitten southern coast, between Findhorn and Nairn, is home to Scotland’s most cautionary tract of land. Now a wilderness of maritime forest, dunes, salt marsh and spits of sand, its human history has been dated to the Bronze Age, around 1300 BC, but it is a territory that since glacial times would have been mobile and mutable. The Laich of Moray is the fertile strip of plain squeezed between the foothills of the Cairngorms and the Moray Firth’s south coast. In Gaelic it is called Machair Mhoireibh (the machair of Moray), a perfect habitat for golf courses and rich arable farmland, threaded by the glacially-rivered straths of Nairn, Findhorn and Spey. Culbin is an old parish which is now buried under 28 square kilometres of duneland and recent forestry. Sweeping east of Narin and curving in to rise up to its greatest heights above the estuary of the River Findhorn, it is now managed by Forestry Commission Scotland, but it is notable that this is a humanl

Clyde Bloc Sport

Cammy Bell enjoying the summer evenings at Dunglass Currently we are developing the Stone Country Bloc Sport website to include a new series of area guides in pdf format, reworking Dumby and other Glasgow-radius crags with sport climbing included (so we'll have the new sports crags at Lomond and elsewhere...details to come!). These topos will also be available from the exciting new Betaguides website (due to launch in the next month or so - a complete database of bouldering in Britain). For the new Bloc Sport webiste I've been embroiled in all things Joomla, which is frying my head, so can't promise anything too soon, so I'll put the topos up on the blog as soon as we get them. Here's an example topo from the guides, which we will be producing in guidebook format next year - it's the Dunglass sport wall: Dunglass has been a saviour for me over the early summer, acting as a good training ground to get some basic fitness back. We have fully bolted the W

Stone Country Press

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