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Climbing

Paying Tribute to Cligga

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18th June 2025

Cligga Head

Stone Table – HS 4b – Lead

That bloody ab rope. Mike and I have issues with this rope. It always ends up depositing us about 15-20ft above where we need to be. Hence the need for a bit of nervy soloing to get to the starting slab of Stone Table. We’re using a 40m rope, but next time I’ll bring the 60m.

This time we abbed down mucky gulley (yet another way down) using the same stake as for C Land Super. Quite a bit of crumbly stuff at the top of the ab, but the climb is on good rock for the most part.

The start of Stone Table

It’s a tale of two crux’s, with fairly straight for ward climbing at about Diff in between. The first is an energetic layback with great holds as long as you dont ruin them with clever gear placement haha. The second a mantelshelf onto a short wall, which is exposed, but not too difficult (although you need to hunt out the gear placements).

Cligga really is an adventure climbing paradice. For somewhere that is just round the corner from Perranporth, it has a remote, wild feeling to it. Probably because of the commitment to get in. But also becasue you never see anyone here, except the odd kayaker and seal.

So glad we’ve returned to this venue and for evening hits it’s brilliant. The sunsets arnt bad either, especially when you can wash it down with a warm can of Tribute.

Climbing

Only in Cornwall….

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11th June 2025

Cligga Head
C-Land Super – VS 4c – Alt lead

On a windy, grey evening with storm clouds approaching, it was kind of surreal to encounter a burlesque dance class, whooping away in an industrial unit in the middle of no-where. But it did bring a broader grin to both Chris and my face, than the one which was already there, having found a little gem of a VS at Cligga.

Fortunately the trials that Mike and I went through the previous week when exploring the crag, meant we knew exactly where to ab in to start this route. It also helped that we could use the ab rope as a belay anchor, so we were set up pronto and ready to begin what was another typical Cornish sea cliff adventure, especially for Chris who had the waves getting closer and closer as I climbed.

I was surprised to find that it was the initial opening moves up to the huge overhang and then across to the base of the main chimney , that were the most tense. There is good gear in the initial crack, but to avoid rope drag this needed to be extended by about 5 ft. So any fall would have put me right back at the start. This is a delicate section. Small footplacements and slopers for holds means you need to approach it carefully.

But once in the chimney, you get all the advantages of bridging, right up to the final escape out of the chimney, on a brilliant jug, which looks like it will snap off at any moment.

We also managed to beat the rain which was moving steadily towards us from over St Ives way. It was a real quick hit and was quite satisfying to know we could work this efficiently when we needed to.

So we hit all the ticks:-
It was scary
It was technical
It was grey and a bit forbidding
We had a laugh
and we had cheese and biscuits for dinner.

Job done!