UKH

Farewell to Almscliff

The first climb you come to at Almscliff is Morrell’s Wall. The last climb you see as you wend your weary way back to the car in the twilight is Morrell’s Wall. It's difficult to ignore.

Ironically one of my best attempts on Morrell’s Wall was my first. As a new climber aged 50 I was returning from a good evening of routing with my son when we stopped to have a winding-down go. Naively I breezed up to the two crimps, stalled out and jumped off. A passing climber commented, “That can be your project”. Prophetic. It didn’t just become my project, it became my nemesis. Everyone has one. A climb which you should be able to do but which shuts you down every time. The climbers I admire most are those who have the perseverance, dedication, crazy commitment to go on banging their hands against an unyielding wall until they eventually succeed, often when they least expect it.

For me that was not to be the case. I would try it every time I visited the Cliff, sometimes throwing myself at it before I was properly warmed up. As the years passed and I gained a bit of technique, I found that the problem remained just as intractable. The right hand crimp was eroding as fast as my meagre skill was growing. I once saw a climber topping out by jamming his right foot into the first crimp. Maybe that explains the loss of those crucial granules of grit.

I had two close calls. On one occasion a climber helped me with some beta. I cruised up, lunged too quickly for the last hold and peeled off. On another occasion, while working the problem with a small group, an accomplished climber did multiple warm-up laps on the problem. After he had headed off to tougher challenges, I gurned up to the left hand hold, crimped down but greased off the sweat left by our friend! One of our group who had also failed to climb Morrell’s Wall, climbed the nearby Flying Arete with some ease and thought that the grades should be reversed.

I didn’t try it again. The first crimp had become a small sloper and it was beyond my diminishing ability. Now that I have retired to Bristol and the dubious delights of esoteric bouldering, I have fond memories of the grit outcrops. I enjoyed my many visits to Almscliff exploring the great variety of problems and routes in sunshine and snow, when crowded or deserted. It’s a place to fall in love with. Let’s hope we don’t love it to death.

Thanks for that, a lovely story. I share the final sentiment: bouldering is where I'm most concerned about the significant evidence of overuse damage (and I'd add brushing's contribution to that).

Great story. I remember Morrell's Wall well too - it was one of the first hard problems I tried when I started climbing. I'd turn up with my one tiny mat and throw it in the quagmire of mud and cow poo beneath the problem, hoping I could place it accurately enough to catch my fall at any point. This was way before I'd learned about resting and I would throw myself at it continually until, at one frustrated point, a razor-sharp crimp sliced a massive bloody hole in my finger. I think I've done it since but I can't say I'm rushing to go back again. 6A+ my eye...

That was lovely, thanks. I too have said farewell to Almscliff having moved in the opposite direction but have had countless sessions up there. Fortunately for me my long term project Sloper Patrol did fall for me. Morrells Wall I managed a few times always a struggle and a fight so mostly walked past.

Almscliff was always a crag of them tha can do and them tha can't, the grades never really had much to do with which was which. It's long since become a piece of my history too but I still enjoy a nostalgic glimpse from afar and I'm hopeful of a second chapter when the little one is old enough to show me how.

Morrel's wall is a nasty knuckle popper. I can't for the life of me remember how you do it but no matter how well you're going you still have to pull hard.

jk

Morrell's Wall shut me down for quite a while too - the first crimp is tiny and I had to get my body in just the right place, which took a lot of experimenting. Felt it was hard for the grade.

I have had a few goes on the traverse that finishes up Morell's wall but always run out of energy trying to get to the crimp - it isn't really that much harder even though it gets 7a!

Maybe you will get stronger in the heat of the south and cruise up it next time you are back?

I'm another that's said a farewell to Almcliff (more or less).

I first climbed there on a brief trip north when I lived in Cambridge and had only climbed in the Peak. My friend warned me to step down a grade or two and I reluctantly heeded him and was glad I did. The routes were of a different style, the polish resembling the stairs of an ancient castle worn smooth after centuries of use and steep face of the NW face resembling the ramparts!

It clearly didn't put me off too much as I eventually moved to Leeds and ended up working only a 20 minute drive from Almscliff.

My ego hated it at first, everything seemed difficult and hard fought for and always a crowd to be entertained by your failures. Over the years I came to love it, the hard fought routes feeling more valuable than soft ones and when not on the sharp end it was great place to be entertained by others successes and failures.

Although originally I climbed only the routes at some point the crag started blossoming with bouldering mats and being the follower I was I bought a mat and started bouldering. In theory you could get more done bouldering than on a rope but in practice there was a lot of sitting, chatting and being entertained by others climbing.

Morrell's Wall was also a big thing for me. I remember looking through my first bouldering guide at all the problems, imaging I should start on the easy stuff, maybe V3, after all I could climb HVS surely that was about right. Immediately it became apparent that V3 was pretty hard, and so was V2, V1 and V0. Humbled we tried the easiest problems, often just making things up or we'd watch other people or chat to them to see how to do things. 

I climbed a lot at Almscliff, 100s of times over the years and eventually I managed Morrell's wall. The crimps seemed impossibly small, it seemed almost ridiculous to expect them to hold you (or you to hold them). I held my breath from the moment I reached for them to the moment I topped out, fingers tips imprinted with the crimps. 

I live up in Cumbria now and it's been sometime since I climbed at Almsliff. The last occasion was on the return leg of a work visit to Leeds, taking a detour and racing the last of the evening's light to solo a few of the easy classics, a well trodden circuit I'd not climbed for years.

I'd be sorry if the holds on Morrell's Wall have deteriorated, it feels like a benchmark, something far from easy but potentially achievable, something hard earned. For me it felt like a milestone to do it. I remember someone saying that the day they couldn't do Morrell's Wall any more would be the day they gave up climbing. It thought it a bit elitist at the time and I still do but I can understand the sentiment.

Nice. It's good to hand in your homework on time and box things off but there's something quite apt about a problem left dangling. Goodness knows I've got enough of them. I had one recently that was well on the way to 'nemesis', and a similarly modest grade. Tried it a few times and never quite had the strength to pull through for the crux for me. It turned out the answer was to do a load of stamina traverses, wander up to the problem and have a go with no expectations. Just for a brief moment it let it's guard down knowing I'd too weak and rewarded a new way of using an old foothold. Maybe it was a low gravity day, who knows. 

To push the Hemingway metaphor a touch further, it sounds like Morrell's Wall was more of a moveable feast with the change of the crimp and just pushed teasingly out of reach. On to the next!

I just looked up that I did Morrell’s wall for the first time in 2016, when I’d have been bouldering outside for 18 months or so.  I was over the moon.

A couple of years later, I spent many days projecting the traverse into it.  As a warm up, I would climb Morrell’s wall over and over.  Every time, I’d be pleased as punch that I could climb it.  But I never seemed to have the same body position twice.  The whole experience was as good as climbing can be.

Many, more experienced climbers would tell me how the right hand crimp used to be so much better.  I can only imagine.

I’ve always wondered why the grade on UKC says what it says - but it makes reading the comments entertaining!

Back in the dim and distant days of the mid 70s when I was a student at Leeds I read in a article by the local guru that there were 5 Morell's Wall  problems. I think I managed 40% over several years. 

Almscliff was my first roped climb on real rock. Best memory was a full traverse of the lower wall early one Sunday morning. Only my mate and myself there. Went past the stew pot and the easy way, across the middle of crack and cave then round the corner under the roof (can't remember it's name) with the smallhex shaped slot in it.

My first MVS lead was crack and cave, the cave was easy but I got stuck near the top of the route, a guy soloed up the wall to the right like a Geko (I don't know what he was holding it was like a flat concrete wall) as he clung to nothing at all he told me that 4 inches above my hand was the biggest jug in history but it was just out of reach. I trusted him and jumped for it and he was right. I could have hung from it for hours. 

Morrell’s Wall is such a great boulder. I recall falling off the last move and landing flat on my back next to my pad. I bit a hole right through my tongue. A lot of blood but otherwise OK which was lucky. The mud is soft there . 

I still maintain flying arete is the hardest 6b in Britain! 

Been a while as I don't live local anymore but anytime I'm in the area I make sure I go. 

Flying Arete is top of the list of my bogey problems.  I can climb quite a bit harder, in theory, but getting to that middle pocket has shut me down for years.  I just can't quite reach, or come up short when I dyno for it.  It'll be a good day when I get it!

I've done it only once in probably over 50 goes, maybe more. My success ratio on demon wall roof is better than this. 

Flying Arete is an absolute beast, I've failed on the pockets for many years, even toppled backwards off the top once or twice. I think I eventually ticked it off but who knows. I'd love to say it's not my style but then neither is Demon Wall Roof and that's significantly easier for me, I think it's just quite hard.

Them tha can do...

jk