A mini blog post to shed some light on this modest but charming crag in The Dales – can’t believe we’ve never visited. Perhaps we’ve been lured to the dark side by the spread of bolts across the county, but this proud little crag has held firm against the “march of the metal men”. Anyway, with my recuperation ramping up towards some HVS leading, this was the perfect spot for a gentle afternoon catchup with Jake, as well as being geographically convenient.

Parking is a bit awkward – we stopped in the scrape / pull-off mentioned in the guide, and parked considerately, but returned to a polite but firmly worded post-it on the windscreen (top marks for handwriting) suggesting we should look elsewhere next time.

It’s then a pleasant, mostly flat walk, with a bit of a slog at the end to the base of the crag.

Stunning vistas and it was tempting to laze in the tail end of the heatwave, rather than crack on with the climbing.

Also delightful to bump into my NMC friends, Colin and Adrian, on a raiding party from the North.

The centre of Venus Wall is home to four excellent HVSs including a couple that get the Rockfax ‘Top 50’ accolade, and we did both. Little Pink Clare is stiff but fairly well-protected. Olympus is only 4c, but warrants the adjectival grade with a thin, slightly polished traverse at half height. Both are outstanding!

Here’s Adrian on the left of Venus Wall.

Jake fancied something a little move testing, and Brothers, E2 5c delivered – the pull through the overlap was somewhat too testing for me.

Jake, on the other hand, was only just getting started. He despatched The Olympus Trip, E4 6a (good, if a bit eliminate), captured by Adrian…

Happily the shot of me seconding is too distant to spot me yarding on the gear 🙂

Worth coming back to do the other HVSs and maybe venture onto the E1s.