Tottering piles of choss

I have this severe problem with climbing on limestone in this country of the bolted variety as the choice of routes within my grade range tend to be completely heinous and loose nightmarish choss. Still a few days out of commission due to pROJECT mAYHEM being in the garage in an attempt to resolve the steadily worsening electrical problems meant that it was go and climb on bolted choss or spend another evening sat about feeling fat. Given the choices laid out before me it was not a hard decision to take up the offer of a trip to Intake Quarry.

Matt started off up some 6b which looked quite pleasant till the final moves where it got a bit nasty to say the least but at least not too many bits fell off it and the sun was shining on us so it was actually quite pleasant. Next up was Duncan on an arete that looked like it was denying gravity by some power known only to itself but it dispatched with not too much fuss though there was the odd comment about the general lack of rock quality.

Two routes and no real drama of a rock fall variety though the party climbing to our left were taking up the slack by pulling down large sections of the crag with considerable ease and throwing in some top quality cursing as a bonus.

My turn. I decided to second the arete and unsurprisingly I was feeling a bit spooked after the goings on of the party to our left - a feeling that wasn't helped when I pulled on and promply pulled off a large hand hold... Great! Anyway I udged, bumbled and slumped my way up the route with a great lack of style and eventually got to the top feeling considerably less than motivated.

Matt tried another route that seemed almost as unpleasant his warm up for the evening and then we stomped off to the Take Away Wall in the search of something that might be a bit more promising and by God we found it. OK it was a small wall - three bolts and a lower off but it was solid and looked inviting. It was also had a couple of lines in the grade range that I can operate in.

Dunc dispatched the hardest line on the wall and Matt did the same and so it was my turn - with a bit of prompting I went for the 6a line "The Big Take Out". Syke still wasn't exceptionally high but after getting the start done I was into the route - past the first bolt, get the second bolt clipped and I was actually enjoying the experience. Get through the crux, make another couple of spicy moves and clip the third bolt and then finish up the rather interesting top section that feels like another bolt wouldn't be considered totally unnecessary and clip the chain.

This is not how UK bolted limestone is supposed to be! This stuff flows and is interesting and above all is solid. OK it is a bit short but regardless I will be back to tick off a few more routes on this wall because it's a rare diamond and so must be treasured.