27th April 2012

Bouldering at Park Head, Helman Tor and Rough Tor

With the weather being so changeable and dry spells hard to find, Tom, Dave and I have been trawling the beaches and tors a bit closer to home looking for bouldering problems.

It’s strange how over the years I’ve become fairly fixated on the main climbing venues in Cornwall, always looking for the trad routes. When the weather closes in I’ve tended to just sit tight waiting for it to settle down. Turns out that if you hunt around there are places which dry quickly.

Helman Tor has become a regular spot for us recently. Loads of good problems and one we’ve had fun working through. Not listed in the guide (but almost certainly done before) it takes the face to the left of the 4a crack using small breaks for your feet and crimps. Finishes using slopers to haul over the top.

Noticeably, we all seem to leave copious quantities of blood and skin on the rock, a right of passage it seems when entering the world of bouldering. The rock is crystalline and when your foot or hand hold goes it tends to be sudden resulting in numerous razor cuts and grazes. But its loads of fun!

I’d been bouldering at Park Head before, and there’s a quartzy wall there with solid holds and a strenuous traverse which can be done on a low or high line. There are other boulders there, including a huge pyramid with probably the worst landing I’ve seen (resulting in a drop into a cave underneath the boulder). Some hard routes are yet to be tried on the North side of the bay, including a wicked arrete.

Unfortunately on this occasion the tide cut us off and we had to escape up the slightly loose slope, an adventure in its own right.

 

Rough Tor is a gem for bouldering. In a few hours we found half a dozen great problems and this was just a small selection of those available. Quite a few are pretty highball, but there’s enough there that you can avoid these for the most part.

I left the ubiquitous chunk out of my knee on a hard mantle problem. Tom, Dave and I were so close to making this one, but the foot placement is still gritty and it didnt go on this day.

Add Trewortha and Hawks Tor into the mix and we’ve enough bouldering to last two or three summers.