20/05/2023

between The Berlin Wall area and The Buttress With No Name

A large crashing noise was heard during a busy sunny afternoon at Shorn Cliff. Walking along the base of the crag later, somewhere around the start of The Berlin Wall area a large rotten tree was found that had fallen from the top of the crag, and based on the pieces of (intentionally cut) old anchor tat around it, it was previously an abseil anchor that was deemed unsafe. Luckily nobody was caught in the line of fire.

30/05/2021

Hydraulic Jump

Placed what was, in hindsight, a poorly placed cam two thirds up and as I climbed past it the route became slippy. I knew I wouldn’t hold it while searching for another hold so tried to downclimb level with the cam. Unfortunately I came off, taking the cam and the piece of gear before it with me. I woke up on my back at the bottom of the starting gulley, making a death rattle type noise. After coming to and having no memory of the day at first my second kept me still and arranged an evacuation of the crag with the ambulance service HART, assisted by SARA. Luckily I had nothing worse than three fractured ribs (bouncing off the opposite wall of the gulley and landing on my belayer served to slow the descent), but a very scary time for all involved. Can’t fault the emergency services and NHS.

01/08/2020

Hydraulic Jump VS 4c

Most Shorn Cliff routes are single pitch 15 - 30m routes and descent is by abseil. I abseiled off the end of a rope and hit the deck. Minor bruising, friction burns and cuts. Incident was due to human error. I put a single 50m rope without a middle marker through the abseil maillon at the top and threw one end down to check it reached the ground. When it did I threw the other end down, did all my abseil checks and set off. I pinged off the end of the ab rope with some force a couple of metres off the ground.