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Favourite descent routes (Read 10768 times)

Will Hunt

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#25 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 12:46:46 pm
I did a multipitch descent in the dolomites (falzerego pass?) down a series of trenches and tunnels from the war. Proper good. Think you might have done it too Will, the crag name escapes me.

Good call. That's the descent from Sass de Stria (aka Hexenstein). Sitting in little machine gun nests on the way.


The downclimb to access Might of the Stalactite at Cala Barques is an exciting adventure.

Nice to see some love for the Demon Wall chimney; it always seems very elegant. Is it Best Forgotten Art that has footage of Arthur Dolphin speed-downclimbing it, or have I dreamt it?

Three Chockstones Chimney. Not seen BFA but the footage is on the DVD that you get with Memories of Dolphin. He basically just jumps off the top of the crag and bounces on the chockstones on the way down. Also old footage of him climbing Kipling Groove etc.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2021, 12:53:14 pm by Will Hunt »

seankenny

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#26 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 12:57:59 pm
The descent from Lembert Dome in Tuolomne is an improbable and slippy walk/scramble/ab, fairly exciting, gets its own topo on MP - https://cdn2.apstatic.com/photos/climb/106464174_medium_1494111336.jpg.

jwi

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#27 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 01:01:44 pm

@jwi - I think that does sound like Intersection rock, which is a great descent! I enjoyed it more than the ski tracks, which provided an "only blasphemy" type experience that wasn't pleasant. If you liked that, you should try the Demon wall chimney some day.

I would love to.

lagerstarfish

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#28 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 01:14:29 pm

P.P.S. The descent from the Lone Boulder at Stanage in which you scuttle down, facing out, the easy rib left of the lone slab until you can pretty much step off onto the next boulder, all the time pondering why it's easier to smear down that than smear up it.

this  :agree:

Stabbsy

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#29 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 01:21:38 pm
The one off Craig y Wrysgan in the Moelwyns where there's a handy tunnel from an old quarry incline to follow.

Least favourite - Dib Scar before it got sanitised with lower-offs, wading back through a sea of nettles.

teestub

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#30 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 01:39:10 pm
Coming down the cables on Half Dome after doing Snake Dike was about as scary as the climbing! Bet you get 10x as many questions if you’ve just popped up off the Regular Route.

cheque

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#31 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 01:52:00 pm
Three Chockstones Chimney. Not seen BFA but the footage is on the DVD that you get with Memories of Dolphin.

It’s the same footage. 00:58 onwards:



Paul B

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#32 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 02:33:22 pm
Coming down the cables on Half Dome after doing Snake Dike was about as scary as the climbing! Bet you get 10x as many questions if you’ve just popped up off the Regular Route.

Quite! I think I opted to wrap a sling around the cables (or perhaps got told to by Nat).

I have to say I really like the end of the SD topo with the arrow and note "slabs forever" which is quite apt.

teestub

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#33 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 02:37:49 pm
I have to say I really like the end of the SD topo with the arrow and note "slabs forever" which is quite apt.

Totally, I still remember the weird realisation that the angle had eased sufficiently that I could just stand up and walk rather than padding with hands and feet!

Will Hunt

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#34 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:03:19 pm
This is my weird realisation that archetypal boulderer Stubbs has done Snake Dike.

teestub

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#35 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:11:13 pm
This is my weird realisation that archetypal boulderer Stubbs has done Snake Dike.

If it helps I’ve also done Red Wall at Gogarth, although that was entirely as a second so not sure it counts!

dunnyg

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#36 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:22:56 pm
Finishing up the slabs above snake dike gave me the Herbie jeebies, I found going down the cables ok, but imagine being a non climber on there. I'd brick it!

webbo

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#37 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:29:34 pm
This is my weird realisation that archetypal boulderer Stubbs has done Snake Dike.

If it helps I’ve also done Red Wall at Gogarth, although that was entirely as a second so not sure it counts!
Is that what led you to boulder  exclusively.

Will Hunt

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#38 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:34:45 pm
This is my weird realisation that archetypal boulderer Stubbs has done Snake Dike.

If it helps I’ve also done Red Wall at Gogarth, although that was entirely as a second so not sure it counts!

#traddad!

steveri

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#39 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:51:32 pm
Coming off Esk Buttress for the first time in the dark wearing moccasyms, down the rocky streambed. Same day I placed an RP on the ungraded approach pitch :)

teestub

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#40 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:53:15 pm

Is that what led you to boulder  exclusively.

Come to think of it, purely coincidentally, that may have been my last trad route!

Aussiegav

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#41 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 03:54:33 pm
My favourite is walking down the long black slab at Taipan Wall. Descending back to the car park. 
Technically a hike/trail.

spidermonkey09

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#42 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 04:30:50 pm
My favourite is walking down the long black slab at Taipan Wall. Descending back to the car park. 
Technically a hike/trail.

Lovely walk down, bit of a slog walking up. I used to like walking in from Camp Sandy where you could look at the crag the whole way.

In the same vein, I enjoyed the walk/scramble off Californian Arete, via bad step and tunnels to emerge at Serengeti.

Also surely the chains down from the Bluffs at Arapiles!

Duncan campbell

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#43 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 04:33:03 pm
The descent from the top of the main south face of chudleigh is a favourite of mine, well polished and interesting down climbing tree roots. Doing it a couple of times last year bought back good memories!

mrjonathanr

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#44 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 05:15:40 pm
Broad stand on Scafell can be pretty exciting sometimes. Is that graded?

Think it’s about Diff. Always used to love the sense of adventure coming down from routes like Pluto, Savernake and Bilberry Buttress as a kid.

Paul B

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#45 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 05:25:38 pm
Villanova de Meia (skier's left) when icy is a bit  :o

We followed a Spanish pair down this. One of them had taken a fall on their route and broken their arm (it was in a thin dyneema sling). Every now and again he'd let out a scream after falling onto it  :sick:.

JamieG

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#46 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 08:15:30 pm
Getting off the Joker / Marie Rose block at Cuvier is always a bit more spicy than you want it to be, similarly the way down from the La Statique etc block at Isatis isn't a nice one!

Same for getting off the L'Elephant block at Elephant and the big central block at 91.1 (which has a big chain to 'help'). More scary than getting up.

Steve R

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#47 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 09:28:24 pm
Walking down the ramp on the Pebble.  No hand grips so even the clunky can get to feel a bit like dawes and you get back to your pad with clean, dry shoes ready to flick up the next warm up.....and then walk down the ramp again, bit faster this time.

SamT

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#48 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 09:37:19 pm
The way off the left hand side of gingerbread slab in Lawrencefield. Down the ledges that are now sadly very overgrown.  I used to be able to flow down it almost with my eyes shut.

Similarly for the descent down to the right of Rusty Wall at Stanage.

(oddly the bum shuffle off the RHS of Flying Buttress was the first thing that entered my head when I read the first post).

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#49 Re: Favourite descent routes
November 18, 2021, 09:43:28 pm
The simultaneous counterbalance abseil off the summit of Big Picket Rock at Ladram Bay.  A characterful descent from a characterful route.

I’ve not climbed Big Picket, but simi-abbing off after the second pitch of The Parson was in a similar vein - after my usually stoic partner pleaded with me to retreat from the disintegrating third pitch.

 

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