[Andy B]

Closest Limestone bouldering to Newcastle:

The Cove, a genuinely good quality venue, although you have to resort to eliminates if you want anything too hard.

Houghton graveyard: where every visitor gets a first ascent as the holds are never the same twice. gr and myself bolted some of the lines there and kept drilling through into holes inside the surface, which we tried to fill with glue. Alot of glue. Steve Crowe cunningly reduced the frequency of this happening by placing half the number of bolts in the routes he did.

[moose]

Aren't you from the NE Moose?  You should check out the bouldering at Kilnsey if you haven't already as that must be one of the closest bits of limestone to you?  Plenty to go at - the best lines are non eliminate and quite obvious, including the starts to a few of the routes on the left hand end.

Cheers for the advice fellas.  Unfortunately I no longer live in Durham - unemployment has forced a retreat to my parents' house in Selby (between York and Leeds).  Kilnsey is still an option though - what's the bouldering like and are there any topos available (other than using the Northern Lime routes guide and climbing to an arbitary height)?

[andy_e]

Selby eh? That's a lot closer to Leeds then, so I guess we'll be seeing more of you down the wall or Almscliffe?

[moose]

Aye andy,  midweek visits to Almscliff now have a new terror beyond cowshit and mini-buses of delinquent kids.  Although you should be safe at the wall - the flexibility of unemployment means I only go when I want to buy some chalk.

[SA Chris]

If I had unlimited free time I wouldn't bother with the wall either. Is this period of unemployment currently infinite? Or do you have anything lined up?

[Paul B]

Kilnsey is still an option though - what's the bouldering like and are there any topos available (other than using the Northern Lime routes guide and climbing to an arbitary height)?

I don't think theres anything written about it apart from the Mandala training traverse. There are lots of boulder problem starts to things such as deja vu and ground effect that DO have a semi-sensible end to them but to be honest I think anyone who goes to Kilnsey to boulder is pretty mental. Why not just go on some of the more bouldery routes of which there are plenty?

[moose]

If I had unlimited free time I wouldn't bother with the wall either. Is this period of unemployment currently infinite? Or do you have anything lined up?

The unemployment is intended to be only temporary: my job kind of had an end-point that I decided not to fight and instead take a bit of a sabatical (it had been a long few years).  I am off on that "vertical world" trip to the Sinai over October and hopefully by Christmas I'll have decided what I want to do for a living and have made some progress towards it.  In the meantime though I have a very long ticklist to keep me occupied....

Paul B - Re the interest in bouldering on Yorkshire Lime - the reason I don't just go and try some short bouldery routes is because I have no friends to belay me and am getting a bit bored with sieging my usual grit bouldering projects (rather than being "a bit mental".... although that's not to say that I am not... it's just not the reason).

[Stubbs]

Why not just go on some of the more bouldery routes of which there are plenty?

Because as soon as I put a rope on I stop having fun and can only climb about english 5b 

[Paul B]

each to their own I guess. The best person to ask about it would probably be Steve Dunning or one of the other locals.

From Memory there is (L to R):

Mandala Trainnig Traverse
Between Metal Guru and Man with a gun there are about four obvious lines of crimps
Some fingery project
Deja Vu Start
Ground effect
Frankie Comes to Kilnsey Start (Roof)

Extreme Right hand end:
Smooth Torquer Start

[andy_e]

Extreme Right hand end:
Smooth Torquer Start

Might as well do the rest of the route...

What are the other things around there? Isn't there a 7c somewhere?

[Paul B]

"More Rhubarb Faster"