Bowden Doors

I spent a couple of days in Oban at a friend’s caravan. The weather was brilliant and we spent most of our time on a jet bike going up and down the loch. When we came back to Edinburgh the weather was still excellent but I had to train for the British Open Competition the following week and so it was back to Ratho, indoors on the Saturday.

Mcofs had organised an outdoor bouldering day on the Sunday as part of their Real Rocks sessions. And we went off to Bowden Hill in Northumberland. Luckily I had been given a crash mat and the Northumberland bouldering book for my birthday two weeks before. I was really looking forward to going because I hadn’t been bouldering outside since I was in Font over a year ago and I loved it then.

Buz (Neil Busby) was leading the session so we picked him up in Edinburgh and took him to Northumberland.

We met everyone in the car park at Morrisons in Berwick and then followed each other to Bowden Hill. Eilidh Vass Payne, Keira Farmer and the Bosi brothers, Alexander and William were in the group. We strapped our crash mats to our backs and only had to walk 5 minutes to the boulders. It was a long 5 minutes. Because it was windy the crash mats were like sails and we bobbed and weaved through the grass.

Buzz talked to us about safety and placing the crash mats properly and spotting our friends. We then warmed up on some easy ones on boulder three to get used to the rock.

We then moved to boulder 2, ‘Super Slab, 4+’, it was quite tricky at first but when we had topped it Buzz then did it one handed and Eilidh did too and after a couple of tries I managed it.

Before lunch we walked back towards the cars and then past them to another area. We stopped at the sheep pen and David (Keira’s dad) put on his funky BBQ and we continued to boulder until the sausages were ready. By now, it was really hot and sunny so the rock was quite slippery. We did “Paw Prints”, “Dreaming of Heuco” and moved round the corner to try “Smooth Wall One” and “Two,” the “South Arete”, “Upper Traverse” and “Reverse Traverse”. Bouldering outdoors again reminded me of how much fun it is to find your footholds and also handholds. They are not as obvious as indoors where they are colour coded. I also enjoy climbing over the top and standing on the boulders which you can’t do when you are indoors.
As we climbed into the late afternoon, we also tried “Entrebaillement” , “Scooped Wall “and “Sandy Rib”.

At the end of the day Buzz suggested we try an 8a called ‘The Crack and he challenged us by saying he would give anyone who flashed it … £1,000! William was really motivated by the money and struggled desperately to get to the top. Buzz looked really nervous for a while, but we all looked at it and had a go but nobody could get much further than the first move. I think Buzz was relieved. At around 4.30pm when we packed up to go home the sun was still shining and everybody agreed that it had been a great day. Buzz and I fell asleep in the car because it was so warm and had been a tiring day… so my dad didn’t stop for chips.