Cormorant Buttress West Route Grade Votings
Total votes cast 4
Adjacent Routes
The best route of its grade in the area. A remote setting and the need for the right combination of tide and calm seas make this a serious undertaking. It is not a good route for the inexperienced. Start from a massive block below the large undercut buttress. USER COMMENTS
Good epic potential here! We traversed over from Quality Street and it's further than we though - almost went up a VS! The CC guide gives this route high end Severe, and I'd agree with that. The flake on the second pitch makes for nice easy climbing (convenient notch footholds in it), but getting established on top of it certianly isn't easy. I recommend jamming your left leg in the flake crag, getting a toe hook in the horizontal break and beaching like a whale forwards across the muddy triangle until you can get enough purchase to palm off and stand up.
Just read that through, and should have put some exclamation marks to lighten it up a bit - it was still a nice outing, even though with all the route finding and other problems (wading through the sea as the tide wasn't fully out), it took us 5 hours from leaving our bags at the ab station to returning to them. Make sure you go armed with enough water (we took none)! |