You can talk the talk but can you chalk the chalk?

The Tube IV photo: Rob Greenwood

A few weeks ago, when winter was not on the horizon and yet I had scotland wishfully pencilled in my diary, it was time to come up with a creative alternative. The idea of going chalk climbing had been bandied around by me and rob for a while but now it seemed like the obvious thing to do. What else can you do when you can't go to Scotland?
So off to the south we went, to stay with Rob's brother and his girlfriend who seemed suitably perplexed at our choice of activity. We set off for the cliffs about at about 8, stopping for a coffee and croissant on the way, much more amenable thing to do than rolling out of a frosty van into a dark and icy carpark at 5 in the morning as it is with scottish trips. Who knows, maybe this is more sensible than winter climbing?
Our objective was the Tube IV, a deep gully splitting the cliff near the port, because it looked like a pretty good introduction to the whole thing. It was drizzling but we optimistically agreed this must be good for 'conditions'. After fobbing off the nice national trust lady with our plan to go walking we tried to make any packing of hardware as inconspicuous as possible, stuffing everything into bulging rucksacks and hoping that no one would notice my out-of-place bright yellow B3s.
We slid around the wet chalk clifftop for a while before finding the very convenient descent complete with sturdy ladder. It was surreal to walk along the beach with the bright white cliffs on one side and the dark blue stormy sea on the other, slipping on the slimy green algae covered rocks carrying axes and crampons.
Rob led up the first pitch, overcoming a steep initial step and getting to grips with hammering in the warthog runners. Then it was my turn to follow and found that our fears about the gear being dodgy was not so accurate. The peg-hammered-in warthogs were almost impossible to remove with one hand, but after considerable effort and swearing at inanimate objects and out-of-earshot climbing partner I recovered the precious warthogs.

All balled up. photo:Rob Greenwood

Next it was my turn, and however great it was that we had managed to accrue 10 warthogs, three were in the belay and another two were needed for the next belay so I had 5 to place in 60 metres. Anyone who has climbed with me will recognise that this is well below my average gear:metres climbed ratio and  the vegetated rubble climbing did not fill me with great confidence so I belayed a bit short and the two pitch route became 3.
It all, however, passed uneventfully and it turns out wet chalk is comparable to ice and warthogs despite being energy sapping to place and remove are totally bomber (on this route anyway). Our main problem was the wet chalk rubble (like snow but not really) balls up your crampons in a way that is resistant to anti balling plates and attempts to remove it. And wet chalk ends up smeared over everything and it won't melt off in the car. In fact it will rub off over the interior of the car. So it was two very chalky people that topped out into the clag and slipped back along to the car park, where luckily the nice national trust lady had left.
It was Nov 5th and we headed to a great fireworks display, and although chalk climbing is a strange thing to do, isn't it also strange to create a national celebration to mark a foiled terrorist plot? But what a fabulous idea!

Solid. Not. photo: Rob Greenwood

Anyway, musings aside, the next day was going to be a 'more chilled' excursion to Saltdean to do some 'sport chalk'. After being very content with the levels of objective danger the day before, we assumed this would be even safer. How wrong were we. Short steep mixed climbs had been engineered using an array of rotting warthogs and, perhaps even more worryingly, bolts. How deep do bolts go? The rock was falling apart in large blocks and reaching the first lower off I pulled off such a block onto my leg, cue some whimpering. Once the pain had dissipated I realised that I pulled the block from between the three bolts in the lower-off which was now my sole point of attachment and they were not not equalised independently either, cue another bout of whimpering. It was at this point I noticed in the guidebook pictures people seemed to be using screamers. Rob then squashed himself with another loose block and decided this wouldn't be somewhere I would return in a hurry.....

I had never visited the south east of england before and was pleasantly surprised with the big white cliffs of Dover. They are are very strange place. Its not Scotland and its not better than scotland, its just different like curry and bolognaise maybe? Anyway, back to more conventional challenges next week hopefully, with winter having made its tardy arrival.......