Well after 30 years or so climbing is now allowed at the much viewed Hugencroft.
Everyone's talking about it and some people are even trying to cull erosion by giving it a massive amount of publicity on the UKs most frequented climbing web site.
I went there last night for a little play and a look about. I didn't see all the rock as I didn't have time, but here's what I thought of what I did see.
-The path to get there's a bitch and is quite hard work, although this may get better with the passing of more feet. It doesn't take too long mind, 10-15 mins at a good pace, but is very uneven and good boots is advisable to protect your ankles and keep them dry (it's a bit marshy).
-Some of the good areas for bouldering, the large free standing boulders and the edge at the left hand end (looking in) do
not have access to them unfortunately and these seemed to have some good lines on them from what I could see.
-The rock's very soft in places, ie it's eroding away naturally, so if you stood on some of this rock it would probably just fall off. It's not all like this at all, some of the rocks solid, but it is variable. It's quite gritty at the minute as well, I was wiping my shoes half way up a problem to get the grit off my soles.
-A lot of the problems are highball/routes/solos and look hard.
-Some of the landings aren't great because the ground slopes off and there's rocks.
There's some good problems there and the views are great, but it's not as amazing as it might appear or some people said it was going to be, for bouldering. If you're into Highball/soloing hard grit problems it might be awesome though.
