Climb Guide -- Climbers Club Ordinary, Dewerstone, Dartmoor

Grade

MVS 4a

Length

175ft. 53m

Location

Dewerstone, Dartmoor

Rock

Granite

Attitude

Sheltered valley, facing south

First Climbed

A. D. M. Cox and R. M. Bere, 2/9/35

Approach

From Plymouth or Exeter take the A386 to Yelverton. Turn off right to Bickleigh, then follow signs north east towards Shaugh Prior. The rocks are situated just north and west of Shaugh Prior, OS 538 639. This route is not the most direct route, but is often the fastest and simplest. The car park is on the south side of the river Plym, next to the wooden bridge. The original bridge was swept away during storms in 93/4. There is a regular bus service from Plymouth that stops at the bridge.

To get to the rocks cross the bridge and follow the path up and across the hillside. Stick to the path as erosion to the surrounding woodland is quite a problem. Soon a path leads off right, continue past the tower and down a scramble to a flat area by and level with the river. The route starts on the far right, from a grotty groove.

Description

1)	Start to the right of the only obvious weakness on the right of the main face. Traverse across from the grotty crack, work out the moves first, and watch out for greasy foot holds. Belay once you reach the main crack, in a sloping niche. There is very little decent gear, apart from a spike, on this first pitch.
2)	4a. The only way now is to launch yourself round to the right. The move is a little awkward, and all the holds feel as if they are pointing the wrong way. Move easily up a little and back to the crack to another belay. Could be missed out if you wanted.
3)	The smooth, deep V-groove above looks intimidating, especially with the overhang at the top. Depending on how confident you are, you will either find it easy and graceful or a desperate struggle. At the overhang move right to some foot holds, then up and right to a wide ledge.
3b)
	A slightly harder, but I feel more pleasant, 3rd pitch is to go left onto the pedestal. Then follow the shallow, flared crack to a niche. Either belay here, or go a short way left to a large ledge and belay. The slab and corner above are followed to the top. (Actually the second pitch of Gideon E1/2 5a, blue dotted line)
4)	Head diagonally left to a slab with a thin crack and corner on the left. Layback and bridge up this to finish on the top.

Notes

The start of the second pitch was the scene of a very rare fatal accident in Devon. The second was trying the difficult left fork above the first niche. He fell and pulled his leader off, who fell to his death.

Account

Our first experience of climbing in Devon was when we were doing our SPA training course. Instead of wasting a day at work, we left on the Friday morning so we could do some climbing prior to finding the bunkhouse and starting the course.

As we did not own a climbing guide to the area, and felt that it was not worth buying one for one day climbing, we made do. This meant reading up a couple of routes from various classic climb books. The two routes we thought would be a nice easy introduction to climbing in Devon, were central groove HS and climbers club ordinary MVS. These were in 'classic rock climbs in great Britain' by Bill Birkett, and 'classic rock' by Ken Wilson.

So after getting lost and finding the most narrow roads around we found the car park. Due to the size of the books, and the likelihood of rain we decided to leave them in the car. So with no guide we walked along the path, and found the crag very easily. The first objective was central groove, which was very obvious. Al lead off and climbed swiftly up the first pitch without incident. I then followed and lead up to the ledge below the last hard part. I was feeling quite ill so he finished the route off.

When we got back down I was feeling a little better. So I started up climbers club ordinary. Having only glanced at the description of this climb, we were unsure of where it went, but we new where it started because we could remember a picture from the book. I thought it was MS, very easy. After about a metre, it had dawned on me that the traverse was not MS. So, with my stomach trying its best to empty, the traverse was a little testing. When I got to the niche, I presumed that I had got it wrong, by going too high or low. But Al found it easy so we continued.

The swing right was also a little hard, so Al belayed below the groove so we could consider our options. When I reached Al we discussed whether or not we were actually on the right route or not. Looking at the groove, and realizing that we had precisely no large pieces of gear, we decided to go another way. I got bored, and just moved up and left onto the pedestal. The shallow crack at least seemed to have more places for protection, but it was almost vertical. I was feeling very bad and just wanted off. As far as I new it could have been the proper way to go. So I climbed, jamming almost all my gear into the grimy crack, and swearing a lot as it was a lot harder than I had first thought. The first niche I reached was rather sparse, but so was my rack. I simply jammed a small cam and two mid sized nuts into whatever was about. At least one nut was solid!

Al followed and clarified with me that that was never MS. He very nearly came off the last move, but did not, partly due to me shouting at him that I was not sure about the belay. He then stepped left and came across the large ledge, no more than a metre and half from my dodgy belay. Any way he then finished the layback and all was well.