UKH

Just wondering what length rope is required from the stake mentioned in the guidebook  to safeguard the approach to the actual abseil point at the top of Urizen?

If memory serves, a 60 will more than do the abseil to the end of the top of the slab. I'm not convinced that it will be that easy to rig the end of the rope to serve as a hand rail all the way across to the ab point however. You can def' use a couple of bits of gear to get it round the corner and onto the rock top rather than the initial muddy bit though.I've also previously put a 240 sling on the large block you have to step past and that made that feel safer for nervous people. 

hth

I added a comment to the Baggy page a while ago about this although it's not easily found I guess...

Abseil access to Long Rock area: We abseiled down the initial steep grass section from two abseil stakes. We had a 60m rope but got to a ledge at the same height as Lost Horizon etc in about 35-40m. The abseil down Urizen is around 40m, we took a 45m rope and had a few metres spare at the bottom.

I used a 30m rope. I must stress that this didn't get us to the top of the routes but it did get us to a point where it was about easy grade 1 scramble territory. I would have thought if you are climbing anything on the long rock, you'd be fine on this.

I used a 100m static (because its the only ab rope I have) and abbed from the spike at the top down the steep grass/path to a block, re-belayed and handrailed to the ab, re-belayed again and abbed down to the bottom with a couple of metres to spare. Ideal!

Thanks for all the replies, most helpful.

Get the tide times right and just walk across the beach, then get them wrong afterwards and swim out 😁.

I've "walked" down to Long Rock Slab twice (many years ago), pretty sure I wouldn't do it without a rope now - not sure if the descent has got significantly worse or whether it's "merely" increased awareness of the consequences of a slip.

A 40m rope will get you to the top of the slab itself. Once when I was there I saw a bloke legging it along the cliff top path asking if we’d seen Tim Emmett(!) He got to the abseil point above Long Rock Slab and RAN DOWN THE SLOPE face forward IN FLIP FLOPS. There was no rope in situ😳

Hi were there actually 2 abseil stakes?...when we last went there was only one which you could literally pull out of the grass.

I would be surprised if you could pull the scaffolding pole out from the top of Long rock descent. Its has been there for a while though, from memory I put this in about 25yrs ago!. It seemed solid when I used it a month ago but things do change, I'll have a check this week.

The top ten feet are unpleasantly scooped  out now, but below that it's a winding rocky path with a couple of scrambling sections. I abseiled it for the first time last visit, but after those first 10 feet found abseiling down the zig zag path to be more awkward than the scrambling.

Only been there 2 or 3 times but I think the first time we just scrambled down to the top of long rock slab. But it's when you turn round and see the gaping cave underneath what you've just come down that's scary.

Wow! If you put the stake in 25 years ago a lot of us owe you a big thanks! 

I've never abbed - just used a handrail.rope but the stake certainly makes it a lot less stressful than scrambling!