Sandy Syke.

I was down in Northumberland this weekend to maintain my unblemished attendance record at the Official Lads Bouldering Weekends, in this case number 4. Slightly bleak Bowden, painful Kyloe, the cheap and cheerful Bluebell Bunkhouse, and cool Callerhues. As often the case with these events, I rarely do that much serious bouldering unless I go off on my own and play around a bit. I find the large team logistics gets in the way of actually focusing on climbing, and for me to push my bouldering I usually need a fair bit of focus and plenty of peace. However the large team logistics (lots of pads and encouragement) does have it's benefits for highballs, and Sunday was fun taking advantage of that at Callerhues (I missed out on one good highball at Bowden which was a pity).

Apart from the social side and relentless banter, what was most rewarding about this weekend was checking out a few more trad lines and the entire trad crag at Callerhues. I'd been there before years ago but hadn't really grasped much other than Callerhues Crack was nice and soft and most other things were desperate. This has been well and worthily corrected in the Rockfax guide with plenty of routes going up by two full grades into the realistic realms of actual accuracy. Combining this improved information with a diligent look at potential possibilities has exponentially expanded my ticklist which is now:

Weeping Fingers E2 5c *** - classic flake line, looks fine.
Tossing A Wobbler E3 5c * - cool looking rugosities with a wee runout.
Twin Hats E3 5c * - looks cool but also tricky.
Ned Kelly E3 5c ** - looks cool but also powerful.
Rice Krispies E4 5c * - nice looking wall, loads of gear, might be worth it's old E3 grade.
Toshiba Receiver E4 5c ** - also nice looking, bolder but still gear potential.
Green Fluff E4 6b * - solo and very funky looking.
Micro E3 5c - no stars but still looks nice, decent pro.
The Lurcher E3 5c * - maybe solo and a nice feature.
Hyena E2 5c * - looks a nice wall thing.

Hmmm might need more than just one visit there ;)