UKH

As some of you may have noticed it has been rather wet recently in many parts of the country, including the Central Belt. So relentlessly wet indeed that "Scotland's only perma-dry E4" was soaked from top to bottom over the entire Christmas period.

I strolled up to Wolfcrag  Wolfcrag Quarry at lunchtime today, and after four or five days without rain it is still barely dry enough to be worth visiting. But beware: I'm pretty sure that the large block directly above the big niche on the main wall has slipped a little downwards and outwards. If it comes out it will certainly kill anyone who happens to be underneath it (and it is not uncommon for people to sit underneath it). I will be giving it a chance to settle through a few wet-dries and freeze-thaws before sitting underneath it again.

In reply to Wicamoi:

Thanks. I walked through today with the dog but didn't look very closely, and I was mainly gawping at some of the ridiculous tick marks!

In reply to Wil Treasure:

Excellent - this gives me an excuse to agree, moralise, forgive and bump all at once.

I had a good laugh at those ridiculous tick marks too, on holds that are perfectly visible from above and below. What makes it even funnier is that they appeared a few days ago when they were marking basically the only two dry holds in the quarry!

I used to get annoyed by all the pointless tick marks and chalked footholds and so on that Wolfcrag started attracting a few years ago - but I rose above it.

Wolfcrag will never be pristine or conventionally beautiful or ethically pure, but it is a place where many different sorts of people and generations of climbing culture come together and learn about each other in the lovely diffident way that climbers tend to.

So where once my 'Wolfcrag warm-up' consisted of smoking a rollie with my back against the sun-warmed rock - often pretty much directly under the now dubious death-block - nowadays I deploy my Zen-like-calm and warm up by methodically brushing off all the excess chalk left behind by climbers of a different ilk.

In a way the tick-markers and foothold friction-reducers are doing me a favour.... because I gave up smoking twenty years ago.

In reply to Wicamoi:

A Bridge of Allan based climber and geotechnical engineer mentioned to me back in November that one of the big blocks was looking like it would go any minute. I thought they were talking about the wedged looking block above the "Monkey's head" corner, but in retrospect it might have been the one you mention.

Either way, definitely won't be sitting under the main wall till things settle down..

In reply to Heike:

Hi Heike, I know the block you mean, and it's always been scary to pull on, but looked normal to me today. Perhaps you could point the geotechnical engineer at this thread?

In reply to Wicamoi: This one?
 

And, on my high horse, I saw Instagram Images the other day of folk bouldering there with hardly a dry hold in sight and just don’t get climbing on soft sandstone when it’s damp. Wolfcrag (Bridge of Allan Quarry until Tony Kay decided it needed a “better name”) is hard enough as is without further wearing away the holds.

In reply to Neil Morrison:

A little point of interest here - the house immediately above/behind the quarry is called Wolfcrag, and my brother lived there for a number of years in the 90's.  His title deeds showed that he owned the level ground right up to the top edge of the quarry face and someone else (The Council?) owned the quarry floor. It was unclear which of these two owned the vertical rock face.

In reply to Grahame N: Thanks Grahame, that triggers a distant memory and explains Tony’s choice of name. 

In reply to Neil Morrison:

First it needed 'better' holds, then a better name! 

I guess, as Tony was brought up within a few hundred metres of the quarry, he had a good idea of the local name.

In reply to Wicamoi:

I abbed in and tied off a lower off at the top of the sandstone to do the trad routes. Was amazed just how chossy the top volcanic band was, not a problem when setting up in the morning, but definitely an issue when folk arrived, were milling around the bottom and I had to pull the rope up!

In reply to Neil Morrison:

Hi Neil, yes that is the block in question.

Interesting to hear that Tony Kay named the crag after the house. To but to add to the story, the quarry is often referred to by non-climbers as Wolf's Hole quarry, and I'm pretty sure this name pre-dates any climbing (I think it appears in Charles Roger's A Week in Bridge of Allan, published in 1851). So it seems likely that the house was named after the crag of Wolf's Hole quarry, and then the crag was named after the house. 

In reply to Wicamoi: Excellent, good to know. Thanks.

In reply to smally:

We're lucky Tony didn't christen it Fraggle Rock!

In reply to Raskye:

Ha Ha, brilliant!

Happy Days at BofA quarry, then a visit to Fraggle Rock or The Queens. 

In reply to Grahame N:

The name Wolfcraig also features just along the road in Stirling, perhaps most familiar to locals these days as the council office where you can pop in and pay your bills etc. Right next to the office is this fine carving and inscription:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wolf-craig

It's right in the middle of town - in fact I'll walk past it again in a couple of hours' time en route to this evening's session at the chess club. It's possible the Bridge of Allan house name derives from the Stirling version.