My housemate has been digitising his slide collection over the last few weeks, not on the standard slide scanner though, he’s opted for a projector and a digital camera, which given some of these shots are old, scratched and been reasonably unloved for a while seems a sensible solution, compared to spending years with a scanner, to do the same job. Whilst some have very little interest for me, others given his time in climbing, and his dedication to climbing all over the UK means that some of the images are of iconic routes. Some of which even I have gotten my arse up.
This evening though he showed a slide of Finale Groove on Boulder Ruckle at Swanage, now being my original stomping ground meant that I should have a wealth of experience here, unfortunately I was a complete punter back then and didn’t actually venture onto the ‘proper’ cliffs, instead I stayed around subluminal, a pleasant and inviting single pitch venue, with a nice non-tidal ledge. It was only when I came to Wales and learnt to climb that I actually wanted to go back down there and climb.
Unfortunately none of my friends from Bournemouth climbed, and an attempt to get a friend to second me up the classic VS Marmolade (sic) Buttress, resulted in my friend having eyes out on stalks, and a array of deep cuts to his fingertips induced by excessive grip on a few of the flint edges! So suggesting we went down to climb another route was met with stern Resistance, and a suggestion that the pub is a better option.
So I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. I was on holiday from University, and had decided to spend it in Bournemouth with my folks, however I now had no one to climb with. So I came up with the idea of Shunting a route on Boulder Ruckle because, whats the worse that could happen? I can always jumar up the rope!
So which route, I had a copy of Pat Littlejohn awesome guidebook to climbing in the South West of England, but it was a very limited selective guide, and also trying to identify a route from the top of a cliff and abseil down it to then re-use the abseil rope as a safety rope meant the route had to be a. easy to identify from above and b. straight up. There were very few routes that fitted that criteria except one, Finale Groove.
On a two dimensional topo it was straight up, it was also on the boundary of the seasonal restriction, so different colour markers were in place at the top, meant it was identifiable from above. So with my climbing rope and a small rack to tie off the stakes at the top I headed off to climb this HVS corner/groove.
To say that the stakes were far from inspirational, was an understatement, considering I was not just going to belay off them but abseiling, I did my best to equalise one rusty one, one really rust one and the most sturdy piece of gorse I could find and with all the confidence of someone who was about to embark on something they were oblivious to the risks of, lent back and abseiled down the line.
I was only when i was 50ft down, that my first oversight was completely apparent, in that as good as a topo is, it really can only capture two dimensions. Unfortunately this route is very much three dimensional, as I became more than aware when my abseil finished 5 metres out from the base of the cliff. Undeterred I clipped on the shunt and climbed upwards, praying that I wouldn’t fall off the first section of the climb, as the pendulum into the ‘ruckle’ looked uncomfortable to say the least, in fact I prayed I didn’t fall of anywhere.
Whilst god answered my first prayer, he made me pay for my ambition, and falling off, from the traverse left out under the overhang, resulted in a massive swing and a hefty drop as the slack was taken up. As I recovered from the initial shock I realised I was, twixt the devil and the deep blue sea, free hanging in space 60ft up a 150ft overhanging cliff, and it seemed like a good time to see if reading Iain Peters and Alun Fyffe Encyclopedia of rock climbing chapter on prussiking was going to be good enough to get me out of this predicament.
Lets just say I had a few false started, but eventually I started inching my way upwards, and this point someone must have gotten concerned, as the next thing I know there was a Coastguard helicopter hovering next to me. Trying to look calm, and this was planned I waved and smiled nicely, and they soon disappeared off, and I soon made it back to the rock where I climbed to the top and quickly packed away my things and ran back rather embarrassed back to the car.
The moral of the story is we are all punter at one point!