Spittal Quarry - A Climbing Guide

from County Climber Winter 2019

by The Northumbrian Mountaineering Club

The spaghetti tour

SITUATION AND CHARACTER

The crag is a north facing wall of quarried sandstone, around 50 to 60’ high. It is an imposing feature. The routes are all vertical and often rely on pockets of varying size. As a result a selection of Tricams will be found useful, if not essential on some of the lines. It is not a crag for the feint-hearted, the easiest of the climbs being around E4. How hard the boldest lines are, without their defunct bolts, remains to be seen. Undoubtedly they will be hard. The wall is clean and offers some fantastic face climbing. ‘Opportunity Challenge’ is easily one of the best of its grade in the County. Most of the climbs have had stabiliser applied, which should ensure their durability, and they climb much better, with less scrittle underfoot. The very bottom of the crag is tidal during very high tides; all the other routes, however, start from grass and are unaffected by tides. The base is as safe for children as any rock pool area. Parking is adjacent to the crag off the track on the left. The current stakes were placed in July 2018. They are 4’ galvanised scaffold poles. Checking their durability is your responsibility. They have been arranged so that at least two are available to be equalised

**Above: Cas Ladha on ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’ on the left, ‘Opportunity Challenge’; on the right**
Mark Savage

above each route. A layout of the stakes is at the end of the supplement. Best conditions will be found when there is an offshore wind, a sea breeze seems to make the crag a bit clammy. All of the usual sandstone caveats apply to the protection.

HISTORY

The crag appears to have been first discovered and climbed on in the mid eighties, by Kev Howett, Calum Henderson and Lee Clegg. In 1986 this group established a trio of difficult routes, with Howett climbing the excellent ‘Opportunity Challenge’ and ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’, and Lee Clegg leading the ramp line of ‘Spring Tide’. This was protected by a peg in a pocket in the upper third. The peg has since disintegrated and has not been replaced. Later Duncan McCallum and Ian Cropley established three more hard lines in the centre of the wall: ‘Taito Corporation’ and ‘The Monster Beach Party’ by McCallum, and ‘Operation Wolf’ by Cropley. A number of poor masonry bolts were placed as protection on these routes which were subsequently removed by Lee Clegg. These were hard and bold efforts. The exact line of ‘Operation Wolf’ has yet to be determined. Thereafter the crag was climbed on and used for ‘training’, mainly from top-ropes prior to the development of Yorkshire sport climbing, but the poor belays at the top, and the soft nature of the rock saw it fall from favour and in the early 90s it disappeared into obscurity. It was then rediscovered in 2005 by Cas Ladha who briefly explored the wall, noting its potential but didn’t take it any further. However, in early 2018 he brought it to the attention of Steve Blake. Together they reclimbed the obvious free climbs, Ladha added an alternative finish to ‘Softly Treads the Beatle’, and Blake established ‘Desert Rendezvous’ up the wall to its right. Lhada later repeated ‘Opportunity Challenge’. At the time of publication the three central routes and the wall left of the ramp line are open projects. The former need to be reclimbed without the original bolts. In 2018 Franco Cookson established the difficult ‘Dolphin Wall’, which may share some of ‘Operation Wolf’. On the same visit Dave Warburton climbed into the niche left of ‘Spring Tide‘ - ’Sassenach’ - and further left again to establish ‘Borderline’. The remnants of a pointless bolt ladder are evident at the base of ‘Opportunity Challenge’, these are fine examples of galvanic corrosion and will likely fall off in the next couple of years.