Castle Hill bouldering

As the Canterbury Plains meet the Northern tip of the Southern Alps lies Porter's Pass and Castle Hill. Lying here are thousands of limestone boulders, some as high as 30m and others as waist high. They are the result of weathering and are incredibly smooth. Whilst some are featureless, many have deep circular pockets in which you can fit anything from two fingers to your entire body. We don't know how these have formed, our geological observations suggest that it is unlikely that they were deposited by glaciers. Rather we suppose that this is all that is left of a much larger layer of limestone and most of the erosion is via the wind.

Typically smooth boulders

This image shows a small part of the total boulder field. Aerial photographs reveal the true size. In this sector (Quantum Field) there are 3000 climbs.

We spent two half days at the Castle Hill boulders. January is a fantastic time to visit as there are many wild flowers, but is very warm for climbing - particularly so for Northern Europeans.

Castle Hill climbing is interesting. We didn't expect to just go there and climb, we knew that we'd struggle. The climbing is characterised by smearing your feet against the holdless rock and using only friction to keep them there. The holds are either deep pockets or, more likely, minuscule edges or large sloping edges. To top out of a climb you have to make what is called a Mantle Move and push with your palms against a slopey top, until you can get your feet where your hands are. In between these are big moves, with high steps and long reaches. Sounds Fun?

We were bouldering. This means climbing things that non-climbers wouldn't consider worth climbing without ropes but using a crash mat. For us, it meant we could try difficult moves in safety. The boulder routes are more often called boulder problems, and in Castle Hill they really lived up to the name problem. In order to unlock the problem you had to perform a fairly precise gynmastic sequence, in which strength played only a minor role. Puzzling these sequences proved the biggest challenge.

This might sound a little strange travelling across the road to climb some small blocks, but bouldering is a sport in itself and Castle Hill is something of a mecca for bouldering.

Hands free rest on an easier route. Although mantling into this niche wasn't trivial.

Anni on pure friction. We don't exaggerate when we say that there wasn't a hold on the whole route. On a hot day this is a damn hard V0 problem.

Tony high-stepping on a V3 problem. We never really got to grips with Castle Hill climbs. I did several V2 and V3s but still failed on V1 problems. Anni improved also finishing with a V1 and many V0 ascents.