rock on raven dude!
ahh.....ravens rocks- this place has THE most obscure “how to find it” entries in most of the
guidebooks, so not to be outdone here is ours
“park in the pull in-walk up the hill a bit-walk along the ridge a bit and the rocks are down on
the dropside on the left a bit-if you get to hunters tor, you have well missed it!” ndcc 2008
we first removed copious amounts of skin here with fab a year back-there is only one guide
worth looking at (look on javu)-the problems are seriously good with some real hard ones too
our last trip there saw us going all “indianna jones” and yomping off through the green stuff
in search of ravens rocks 2, an expedition that didn’t spare the casualties, nic-dodgey knee,
daren-tick, kane-tick and me-face first over a rock to cannonball down the 1 in 3-(bloody
hurt that did, and the laughing didn’t help)-there is a lot of rock in those woods so it is hard
to list all the routes, lets just say there is stuff to climb up and along EVERYWHERE-as usual
the minibeast population was above average, and it seems that lustleigh based ants have a
real attitude problem “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” oh yeah...you
and whose army? “well that would be me and eight hundred thousand of my soldier ant
friends!” and so, it went on all day like that-
but forget the bugs, this place can be quite inspiring as it is away from the dog walking crowd
up on the ridge and the lost ramblers who always seem to be loitering up top with their faces buried in a landranger or looking for place to get their flask of tea out
any minute you expect frodo baggins to skip out of the undergrowth and ask “ is that the mystical tor of the hound over yonder sir, we need to go forth and rid the shire of the
marauding letterbox pixies ?”
well....the pictures speak for themselves, if you’re lucky enough to find this place, it feels
that it’s certainly a special venue well worth battling the gorse, stingers, biting bugs and the
inevitable “should’ve gone up there...should’ve gone down there” gripes that WILL happen
Sunday, 29 June 2008
daren on the slabby boulder problem 10 /4c
above: ravens rocks overview
left: nic and liz choosing to
ignore any impending crux
moves (probably talking about
clothes, sex or kittens or
something)
above left- ravens rocks 2 roof type thing
above right- a bit of a hint what is to come,
the woodland walk just up from where you
will be leaving your car (its getting cleaner)
left- scratched, bruised, battered and battle
weary (yep... good days bouldering that was)
nice view of houndtor so time to get out the
flasks and what food is still edible before
the walk back down to see if the wheels
are still on the car