Dartmoor - May 2026
When the planned Dartmoor meet popped up on the club meets calendar, I, for one, was excited to see that I could attend. Having been to Dartmoor a couple of times previously, but only having climbed a small selection of routes, I was aware of the high-quality granite available on the Tors and was keen to explore more of what it had to offer. Many in attendance were in a similar boat it seemed, with a selection of people having never climbed in the area at all. And of course, the entire meet could benefit from climbing-worldly knowledge of Peggy and Kat, the latter of whom seems to haunt most people’s UKCs when looking up a route’s ascents with her usually marking it up as an easy/pleasant route, when you’ve just dogged it or bailed.
Friday
Myself, Ian, Kev and Dan Smith headed to Lower Sharpnose just outside of Bude. The area offers one of the most scenic walk-ins I’ve ever experienced. Isolated bays, void of tourists, with rugged cliffs stretching in both directions down the coastline, welcoming huge sets of waves which add to the atmosphere of impending doom that exists when you’re paired up to climb with Kev. The coastal path leads to the top, where the view reveals the striking vertical rock fins of excellent quality jutting out into the sea, the tips of which remain in the surf even at low tide; a stark reminder that this crag is tidal - the sea guards it most of the day, and that decision to climb " just one more route" could quickly turn precarious.
Kev was the first to touch rock. In typical Kev-style, and met with an internal sigh from myself, decided his warm-up route would be a pumpy 2-star E2 5b called ‘Misery Goat’. Even though you’ll seldom see Kev shaking out quite as much between moves on a route, he made steady progress and never really seemed to faulter, the accumulated pump only being fully communicated post-top out and met with another grimace from me. I seemed to get pumped after about 5 moves as the second, a pump that never really dissipated, and by roughly 2 thirds route height I shouted ‘TAKE, KEV!’, looking up I am met with Kev’s sh*t-eating grin and a flat ‘Nah!’….I take the small swing away from the line of the route to shake out.
Dan had set off to lead ‘Clawtrack’, HVS 4C, whilst I was belaying Kev, so I had the chance to glance over form time to time to check his progress. He remained a quarter-route height for some time, before bailing and letting Ian lead the route. The shame of being the only climber wearing crack gloves at the sea cliff, and the only climber bailing off a route, must have been painful. And as anybody who’s ever climbed with Ian will know, there is a special type of pain watching him float casually up the route you couldn’t do moments before, telling you how lovely it was, and no doubt rubbing a liberal dash of Devonshire sea salt into Dan’s wounded soul.
Kev’s second route choice was a classic 3-star of the area: ‘Out of the Blue’, E2 5b. A bold start, but with much higher quality climbing than the previous route, once again Kev made it look much easier than I did on second - adjacent climbers also commenting on the swift progress made through the bold section and the steeper, more physical section above. I still moaned about being pumped but luckily didn’t have to deal with the rejection of my calls for ‘take’ this time round. Ian lead ‘Hatchet’, HVS 5a, as his second route, the route getting good reviews from both him and Dan at what became the end of the climbing day on the walk back to the vans. With varied climbing from corners, cracks, and an off width leading to the top-out.
Kat and Toby, held up by the bank holiday traffic, decided on an area closer to the campsite for convenience. First heading to Meadfoot Quarry, where after giving Toby a brief introduction to half-rope belaying, Kat chose ‘Meridian Lucky’, E1 5b as her warm-up route. This wasn’t Toby’s first encounter with Coach Kat, having been fully ‘Katted’ in the Peak district earlier in the year - an experience many of us know well. They then made their way to Daddyhole (hehe) Main Cliff for Toby’s first introduction to trad multi-pitch. Toby admits a bit of psyching up was required to get himself up ‘Last Exit to Torquay’ 3-star HVS 5b but warmly regards it as one of the highlights of the trip for him, the route’s pleasantness repeated in Kat’s UKC comments.
After abseiling back into the crack to retrieve their bags, and not fancying the walk- out, the decision was made to climb out avec bags via Triton, a two-pitch 2-star VS. The first pitch was smooth sailing for both, but just beyond the first belay encountered a pigeon nest hidden deep within the crack (there’s a joke about Kats and birds in their somewhere, but I shall refrain). According to Coach Kat’s logbook, it was with difficulty that the ‘rats with wings’ and bird shit were avoided, but managed to complete, building a belated second belay at around 9pm. Toby, needing to don a headtorch for the second, arrived at the belay, thinking the adventure was over…not knowing that a session of head-height bramble bushwhacking was required to make it safely back to the car at 10pm.
They managed to indulge in a late dinner of fish and chips in Torquay before heading to the campsite for a late tent erecting session, concluding a memorable day for both, I’m sure.
Saturday
If you can successfully dodge the herds of cows and bands of Dartmoor ponies that litter the roads, you can eventually make it up to Haytor, which was the venue chosen for Saturday by the entire group. The granite doesn’t look like much from a distance, but has a distinct presence when you get up close, the routes being slightly taller than you’d expect, especially on the Low Man side.
Kev kicked off the day with his warm-up route, 3-star ‘Letterbox Wall/Hangover Combo’ E1 5b, with a bold and techy start (shocker), working up to a steep crux to a slopey top-out. A fine, clean lead for Kev, but requiring a couple of calls for ‘Take!’ from myself and Josh on second, figuring out the crux moves. Kat would repeat later in the day, spending much more time than Kev going through cycles of climbing/down-climbing, but still managing to catch the on-sight through her perseverance.
On the same side of the crag, a VDiff named ‘Bulging Wall’, a pleasant mix of flakes and breaks working through the tallest part of the South Face, saw ascents by multiple members of group. Immy led the route without issue, Hannah following, then both Luke and Toby gave that route clean ascents as their first trad leads. To the right, Billy and Kateryne were trucking up another VDiff, Athos, where Billy was getting the Kat treatment from the ground…’feet…there’s loads of feet…FEET!!!!’
Over on the Low Man side, Josh took the lead up Raven Wing, 2-star VS 4b, which provides a crux at the awkward move out from the corner, around the arete, to the face - on which Josh summoned a healthy amount of faff, and provided me some awkward gear to retrieve as I followed, ultimately faffing myself in an equal amount.
On our right, the kids, Jamie and Dan, were heading up ‘Levitation’ VS 4b, which I heard no reports of dramas or bails so I guess they got on alright - and to the left, Ian was leading Louis boldly up a great looking line ‘Outward Bound’ HVS 4c, which includes a steep, juggy, exposed zigzag line through the initial roof section, then up the face to meet Josh, Toby and I at the belay stance.
In the early afternoon as shade became difficult to find, Kat led another E1 5b at High Man South Face called ‘Haggis’. In usual Kat-style, she made it look easy, cruising through both the bold slab start and through the overhang on invisible footholds. Luke had a slightly tougher time on second, which put into perspective for the viewers the difficulty of the climbing, all knowing Luke is a strong climber in is own right. Kev would lead this same route later in the afternoon, dogging it in the end, and became another victim to Kat’s UKC commentary which says, ‘Thought this was going to be harder than it was’. But in the end, the glory was taken by Josh, who was given a round of applause by a group of non-climber onlookers for his stellar effort as Kev’s second.
Much of the rest of the afternoon was taken by a group effort to crack the beta on a E4 6a called ‘Rough Diamond’. Kev set up a top-rope and threw it down the blank, lichen and moss-ridden face which contained a main crack, the gaining of which was supposedly the crux. Questions over the 3-star rating sparked some conversation, as the route was clearly in poor condition and hadn’t seen an ascent on UKC since the previous summer. Kev was up first; he didn’t make much progress but proudly claimed that subsequent successful attempts at the early moves were owed to his selfless acts of cleaning and chalking the holds (or lack thereof).
Kat made good progress at figuring out the start, finding more footholds as the number of attempts grew, until eventually was able to establish in the main crack, and within a few attempts had cracked the route as far up as the top rope would allow, even at the cost of become inverted at one point. Ian also gave it a stellar effort, making it just as far up the route, smearing on moss/nothing as Ian does. Luke and Jamie both gave the bottom section a good try, but unfortunately coming away short of climbing the main cracks, although Jamie did come away with a crystal-gouged kneecap that took more first aiders than was reasonable to assist and get him patched up.
As the majority of the group slapped and scraped around on the E4, Billy and Kateryne got sandbagged by a Diff around the corner. A rough mix of mossy flakes on a slab resulted in a bail from the route. The UKC comment section tends to agree with Billy’s assessment of the route and is littered with exclamations of a sandbagged grade, poor condition, lack of gear, near-ground falls, and is succinctly put by one UKC comment as, ‘Mossy. Hard’.
The group headed back to the campsite (via the ice cream van in the car park of course) to listen to Kat’s tales of unqualified belayers and eat some pizza that the Chairman had so kindly offered to make with his swanky gas pizza oven. As the group is sat around chatting, waiting for pizza, Kloe and Brad make their grand entrance with drive-by, windows down, sunglasses on…looking like the true power couple.
You won’t find many complaints about the pizza from all who partook, and I, for one, would have been happy if that was served up in my favourite pizza chain restaurant…which, come to think about it, is called ‘Pizza Pilgrims’…hmm.
Sunday
On Sunday the group had decided to go to The Dewerstone, which along with Haytor is up there with one of the more popular crags in the area, and it’s easy to see why. A great range of mid-grade climbs, dropped in the middle of a woodland on the south-west of Dartmoor, and blessed with the sound and cold-dunk option of the River Plym.
Climbing with Imogen and Josh, I head off first thing up ‘Central groove’, HS 4b, a truly memorable first pitch, mixing up corner crack, bridging, and face climbing. Holds everywhere, gear everywhere, a truly pleasant pitch of climbing at the grade, with Josh leading the second pitch whilst Imogen and I perched on a belay chatting in the sun, complimenting the view and complaining about the rising temperature like the true fair-skinned gingers we are… it was going to be a hot one! Multiple teams of climbers would climb this route throughout the day, all with similar reviews.
Whilst we were sat on the belay watching Josh faff, Kat and Kev made their way up ‘Scimitar Direct’ E1 5b. Kat’s self-confessed loss of head-game made for an uncomfortable first lead of the day by the sounds of it, but the second pitch which Kev led didn’t look much more comfortable from the view on our belay; Kev having a bit of a battle pulling his way through the roof sections on holds less ‘positive’ that the guidebook had promised.
Ian, Dan and Jamie knocked out two other routes aside from Central Groove, ‘Leviathan’ VS 4c and ‘Climber’s Club Ordinary’ VS 4b, switching up the leading duties throughout. Not a bail in sight for young Dan Smith…progress it seems. Lots of route-hopping happened throughout the afternoon in the Main Face area of the crag as various climbing teams repeated the same routes, with the majority of the teams ending up in the same place, the river.
As the day got hotter, the more people seemed to frequent the river’s cold embrace (even Kat), but no-one more than Brad, who almost certainly spent more time under water than he did touching rock. Whilst the cold-dunks continued, Luke got an abseiling lesson from the Chairman, and Toby got some ground-level belay-building practice.
As the climbing day was drawing to a close, two teams remained on the rock. Louis, Josh and I climbed ‘Climber’s Club Ordinary’, dodging jackdaw nests and the two leaders in-turn kindly leaving me spicy traverses on the second of each of the two pitches – Billy and Kateryne trucked up ‘Route B’ HVD, a 4-pitch adventure quoted as being one of the best VDiffs at The Dewerstone, culminating in a juggy, exposed arete giving a great mix of scenic views and increased heartrate at the grade.
To close out the day, the entire group headed to the pub for a well-earned cold drink and a bite to eat at The Rock Inn at Yelverton before retiring to the campsite.
Monday
On Monday the group split, the majority heading to Hound Tor, Kev and I heading to Fairy Cave Quarry in Somerset. At Hound Tor, the group split into their teams and got to work…well, some did. Josh and Imogen set out to tick all 7 green dot climbs at the crag, their plans thwarted by the humbling experience of getting spat off a VDiff, ‘The Vice’, in true British trad style, to which Josh responded by retiring from the weekend’s climbing and take up his new role as photographer for the rest of the session.
Jamie and Dan climbed ‘One Move Wonder’ HS 4c, then ‘Suspension Flake’ 3-star VS 4c, the latter resulting in arguably the best photo of the trip, Dan casually leaning back on one arm, left heel-hook safely in its place behind the juicy flake…nice! Brad got fully Katted, Kat leading her way up ‘Hydraulic Arete’ HVS 5b, probably making it look straightforward enough, but Brad having quite the battle on second couldn’t get past the troubling moves. Billy became the next victim to attempt the second but also failed to meet the grade (excuse the pun). We all know cats like to toy with their prey, but this Kat seems to be taking it to a new level…Luckily the bouldering bros Dan and Luke were on hand to cruise up the route, retrieving Kat’s gear.
Louis, Luke and Toby decided to make use of the large foam pads that had been hauled across the country. Apparently, this is a type of climbing called bouldering, but I wouldn’t know much about that….”this is a trad club, for trad people!!!!” Toby got himself up a f6a on his flash attempt… Nice work Toby! And Louis is seen in photos getting into some shapes at least 4 inches off the ground, confirming what we have all been suspecting since his return from travelling the world, that he really has lost his head game.
Over in Somerset, Kev and I found the unassuming gate for Fairy Cave Quarry which gives access to a much bigger climbing area than the Rockfax app would have you believe. I hopped on the quarried limestone slab for the first lead, ‘Rob’s Crack’ VS 4C, a great little climb, probably a bit soft in the grade but certainly of good quality. Whilst Kev was on second he even found the time to engage in a debate with me about the efficacy of my sideways nut placement (he was probably right to be fair).
Kev led the second route, ‘Smell the Glove’ E1 5b. A bold start (surprise, surprise), and on thin, polished holds to gain the niche at 7/8 metres (I’m glad he was leading it, not me). The route didn’t fight back too much, Kev made light work of it, and after that route with no shade in sight now, we decided to head home in his van8 with broken air con, in the heat of the day, as the other group found themselves a new, cool water source to dunk in. Both groups becoming sufficiently soggy in our own ways.
As always, it was a great club trip. Every club trip I’ve ever been on has contained the same quality climbing, great people, and Kat’s distrust of belayers. This time however, with an average daily peak temperature of 26 degrees, it made for a very special British climbing weekend indeed.
Thanks all!