CGR brave the warm sunny weather to crank the new dry tooling routes at The Leeds Wall.

We were both short of time today as I had a family  and Kev needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping. A phone call later and the decision was made – we would follow the rumour mill and sniff out the alleged dry tooling routes at The Leeds Wall. We’ve both already been out this season, Kev has done The Jabberwock on Gable las  weekend and I’ve been on a more sedate Pinnacle Ridge (in full blizzard mind), so we didn’t feel too bad about catching a couple of hours indoors.

I packed my BD Vipers, helmet, leashes and rock shoes and headed down. It was refreshing to be able to turn up whenever and just pay a normal wall fee to climb. There was a sheet to sign, but other than that no extra bureaucracy was enforced. I was given a set of safety glasses and two tennis balls to put over my adze and hammer, Kev having a set of BD Fusions didn’t need them.

We then went into the tower (completely away from the main climbing area) where the routes were set up. There were 10 routes of grades M3 through to M7, the routes are new so needed a little work on them – mostly some small screw on footholds to make the starts a little easier. But otherwise there was a great range of routes with plenty of high steps, hooks and a lot of delicate corners and steep yarding. The holds are plastic backed onto plywood squares, same colour holds for picks and feet.

I immediately whacked myself in the chin with my adze as I didn’t want to look uncool with the tennis balls on the ends of my axes. Hey ho, I now look even more uncool with a cut chin for Christmas. I swapped to using Kev’s Fusions and that felt better.

Two hours later we were blasted and very happy, deciding that it was a great local venue for dry tooling and super addition to the Leeds facilities. The routes still need a little tweaking and there are plans to add more routes. The best route was definitely the blue M6, left of the door (looking out), some great back and footing lead to a roof and some big pull on small holds plonks you onto a desperately delicate move to a small hold that feels miles away. Well pumpy and well done Leeds Wall, a big thank you from Climbing Gear Reviews.

Merry Christmas to you all and be safe out there this winter.

Dave, Kev and the team.