Back Harbottle Crag

Grid Ref: NT914038   Aspect: NW   Problems: 1
Altitude: 278 mtrs   Walk in: 20 mins

From the West Wood car park just past Harbottle, head up the hill to Harbottle Lough and pass the lough on the right to the range fence. Plodge across the bog diagonally left to the crag which can be seen 300 metres away at the top of the hill. Wellies are the recommended footwear.

General:

An exposed bouldering crag just inside the ranges behind The Drakestone. The notable features are a fine pinnacle with some scary potential problems, and an amazing gigantic neb. There is other stuff in the jumble of boulders and walls between these. Thanks to Chris Graham for most of the photos.

Rock:  

Fell Sandstone Carboniferous, Dinantian

The sandstone is typical of the area, basically very hard but with snappy ironstone seams and protuberances. These are particularly vulnerable when the rock is wet.

Access issues:

Access is theoretically not permitted, but the crag seems to be wall away from any action, being just 300mtres inside the fence and inside the Danger Area markers on the OS map.

Routes/Bouldering:  

No recorded routes.

Problems:

There is good potential here, maybe the Neb could do with some stabilising for the ironstone seams.

History:

J Dalrymple discovered the bouldering potential on a wet weekend while the ranges were open for access and reported the find to Chris 'Springer' Graham who did several problems and produced a miniguide for his now defunct website.