Submitted by: Barry Clarke
Crag: Bosigran, Landward Cliff (p 138)
Date of ascent: 09/08/2015
Climbers: BJ Clarke (solo)
Dark Coin
Length/grade/stars: 17m D
Start location:
When approaching Gendarme Ridge from the Count House, the most prominent gendarme is bordered to its right by a grassy chimney. Start 5 metres right of this chimney below a line of left-slanting black schorl.
Pitch descriptions:
Follow the black schorl pleasantly to gain Gendarme Ridge.
Descent: either by abseil, or up/down the Ridge.
Wrinklies Return
Length/grade/stars: 9m S
Start location:
Start 4 metres right of Dark Coin at a short, dark slab just right of a roof at 3 metres.
Pitch descriptions:
4b Climb the dark slab, move left and follow the fine, but poorly protected, wavy rib to a ledge. Make a steep pull to reach the black-marked twin cracks and follow these to the top.
Queen’s Parlour
Length/grade/stars: 21m VD
Start location:
Start as for Wrinklies Return.
Pitch descriptions:
Climb the dark slab and continue up the fault to the ledge. Step right and finish up the corner crack.
Additional info:
With a little light brushing there are further impressive possibilities here. It’s a really handy spot; maybe deserving of its own name, Count House Crag?
These lines have all been climbed before but never recorded, not least by my grandfather and I back in the late 50s, early 60s, and we weren’t the first. In those days the Gendarme Ridge was a popular outing and was usually climbed at the end of a day on the various traverses and circuits of Porthmoina Island, long before the voluntary ban came into force.