LANCASHIRE ROCK

This site is a digital copy of the 1997 BMC guidebook to rock climbing in Lancashire

Ape Buttress

  • 59 - Primate

    Grade: 5a | First Ascent: -1974
    Rating: 1

    Start two metres right of the left end of the wall at a slim groove at head-height. Reach up to good holds on a ledge and pull strenuously up the bulge to finish above on parallel, vertical cracks.

  • 60 - Swamp Fever

    Grade: 5b | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 0

    Start one metre right, below an obvious right-facing flake hold above the roof. Climb direct to this and the wall above.

  • 61 - Malaria

    Grade: 5b | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 0

    Start a metre right below a vertical crack. Reach this with difficulty and continue more easily.

  • 62 - The Lemur`s Tail

    Grade: 4c | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 1

    Start at the foot of the obvious, thin crack a metre left of a deep groove. Climb the crack and finish up its continuation.

  • 63 - Gibbon Take

    Grade: 5a | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 0

    Start five metres right of The Lemur`s Tail. Climb the left-hand of the two parallel cracks which are a metre apart.

  • 64 - No More Monkey Business

    Grade: 5a | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 0

    Climb the right-hand crack. Purists can increase the grade to 6b by starting right at the back of the overhang.

  • 65 - Chimp

    Grade: 4c | First Ascent: -1974
    Rating: 1

    Start at the same point and pull over the bulge at the right slanting crack using good holds, then finish up the face.

  • 66 - Gorilla Berengii

    Grade: 4c | First Ascent: -1974
    Rating: 1

    Just right and growing from the face is a slim tree. Start a metre left of this tree and pull over the bulge on an excellent flake hold. Easier climbing leads to the final crack.

  • 67 - Gorilla, Gorilla

    Grade: 4c | First Ascent: (Pre-1991)
    Rating: 2

    Start below the slim tree in the centre of the wall. Climb the bulge and pass the tree to reach the horizontal break. Climb directly up the front of the buttress just right of a curving nut-crack. More sustained and finer than its neighbours.

  • 67a - The Cause

    Grade: 6c | First Ascent:
    Rating:

    Start at the back of the roof.

  • 68 - Pithecanthropus Indirectus

    Grade: 4c | First Ascent: -1974
    Rating: 1

    Start at the base of the obvious left-slanting crack and surmount the overhang, then step right into cracks and finish direct.

  • 69 - Pithecanthropus Erectus

    Grade: 4b | First Ascent: -1974
    Rating: 0

    Start at the extreme right-hand end of the overhang. Climb direct up the wall immediately right of the blunt arête.

  • 70 - Nick`s Traverse

    Grade: 6c | First Ascent: -1987
    Rating:

    A must for all boulderers. Traverse the wall at low-level, left or right using only the red-spotted handholds.