UKH Hills - 'West Chockstone Gully'

70m. Heading from Patterdale, up the Grisedale trench, stopping at the first wooden footbridge and looking up you will see Y gully standing somewhat centre of the crag face. 100 meters to the right of this is West Chockstone gully, the ascent to the gully is on steep grassy ground. Once reached you will see the mouth of the gully stands well above head height and is topped with a rather large flat slab. When this is wet it acts as a launching pad for a rather small but very wet waterfall, this can be avoided by climbing to the right. When obvious height is gained, cross over to the left to stand on the slab, here you can build a belay if required. Now moving forward a short distance you will reach the next obstacle which is a wall of rock which again stands above head height, the rocks here are very slimy when wet. I climbed this wall with the support of my partner's shoulder, there are good axe placements to the upper right hand side which help in the way of a much needed pull up. Once above this obstacle you will find plenty of places to build a belay, here West Chockstone becomes an open gully. The feeling of height gained is now awesome looking down to the valley floor the Grisedale Beck appears to be no more than a thread meandering down towards Patterdale. Although the gully here is open and probably the starting point of the Girdle Traverse you will see the final crux wall. This stands at the end of a narrow but tall culdesac and to reach it requires climbing over small boulders and scree to the foot of the wall which towers high above you. It can however be climbed to the right hand side, I found this to be much easier in winter when frozen as in normal Lakeland conditions wet water pours over the wall making the rocks slimy and difficult to grip. Don't worry there are some good hand holds almost like narrow little shelves and you can if required place protection beneath the roof of the upper part of the wall where you will see a large gap to accommodate this. In two smooth moves you will be on grassy ground crossing over to the top left hand side of the wall, again here a belay can be built to aid the ascent of any second climber. Hereon the climb out to the summit of St Sunday, which is to the left of the exit area of West Chockstone gully is nothing more that a good walk combined with some minor scrambling ........Big Hell