Crag guide - Turning Stone Edge

What do you do up in the Peak District when its ****ing down with rain?  Eco-friendly tourism perhaps? (supporting the local economy by gear shopping in case you’re wondering), go to the caff/pub all day? go for a walk? or why not go and check out all those minor crags that are listed in the guide book but which you’ve never got round to visiting ‘cos you’re always at Stanage or the Roaches.  I’ve looked at guide book description of Turning Stone Edge several times. Its in the Chatsworth guide book and has 50+ routes, most in the V Diff to E1 range.  The description sounds good and it's gritstone, my second favourite rock after Cornish granite.  The only problem was, every time I’ve been to the Peaks I always ended up at Stanage or the Roaches.  One particular weekend climbing was evidently off the menu due to a week of solid rain that still hadn’t stopped, so what better opportunity to go and find said crag and do a recce.  As they say, time spent in reconnaissance is time rarely wasted.  Armed with a map and guide book and a full set of Goretex, off I went.  The guide book approach description was good and I soon got parked up and headed off to the crag.  The route description is complicated but easy to follow in practice and within 10 minutes I was at the clearing in the woods.  “…and follow a short path through rhododendrons to gain a descent gully on the right.”  OK what path? 
Well, suffice to say I was in fact within 50 yards from the crag, but I spent over an hour thrashing and crawling on hands and knees through the rhododendrons before I eventually found the crag.  It was a good job I didn’t have a rucksack, it would have been 2 hours.  The picture on the right shows the correct path out of the several possibilities.  The correct path(?) from the clearing in the woods
Once on (in?) it, it looks something like this… crawl through this lot

How do you know you’re in the right rhododendron tunnel as there’s loads of them where obviously lost climbers have been bashing through the jungle trying to find a crag? 

-           If you’re crawling on hands and knees as opposed to just plain stooped over then it’s the wrong path, although I accept that this piece of advice won’t hold for Rob Smith, nor will it hold if you’ve got a rucksack on your back. 

-           If you go down hill more than 20 feet you’ve gone past the crag. 

Quite how you’re supposed to get a rucksack full of climbing gear through I’m not sure, you certainly want to have the ropes inside the sacks.  But I digress.  After not very long you come to the Turning Stone.  Don’t scramble down the paths either side of it!  From where the picture on the right is taken, step back 6 feet and follow the rhododendron tunnel on the right. You then scramble down the gully (easy) and you’re at the base of the crag, for which the guide book description is correct, the rhododendrons have been cleared – there’s a 6’ gap between the jungle and the rock.

 The turning stone
Great, armed with this additional information you’ve saved yourself an hour of jungle bashing and are ready to climb. So what’s it like? Sort of grey, rounded holds, not much gear, water pouring down it. OK, OK, its gritstone so what do you expect?… grey rock, no holds, no gear, great friction. Before I ramble on any more, lets get one thing straight. It was dull, ****ing down with rain and my back was aching from crawling through the jungle so don’t expect a glowing testimonial. Its pretty much the same as any gritstone outcrop except that there might be a problem with a descent route. Belays at the top won’t be a problem as there’s a whole forest of rhodo ****ing dendrons to belay off. Walking off the top will be a problem unless you’ve got a chainsaw and GPS in your lead rack. Stuff the ethics, abb off. The crag
On a more positive note, the best looking line has got to be Sail Arete, HS 4b, nice looking, but perhaps not in the wet. Sail Arete, HS 4b
The bottom line: hit, miss or maybe? Definitely not hit. If the weather had been better I might have given a “maybe”, but then think what you’ve got within half an hour: Stanage, Roaches, Froggat, Curbar, Burbage, Stoney Middleton etc. etc. MISS, unless of course you’ve got some perverted rhododendron fetish or you want to play with a chainsaw.

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