Skeleton Ridge - The Needles, Isle of Wight

So on Saturday 28th of May at 8.15am, my buddies and I did a short ab into the Battery Moat just to access the abseil stake, followed by a 90 metre chalky and chossy ab into Scratchell Bay. Unsurprisingly chalk is rather a strange medium to climb and I thought it would be a bit like climbing feta cheese! However it is remarkably hard and solid (for chalk!) although there is always a wee nagging doubt that a hold or ledge may explode at anytime. Once established on the route, a rollercoaster ride of buttock-clenching ridge featuring amazeballs arêtes and fantastic fins of à cheval awesomeness on the edge of nothing are clambered whilst gaining around 90 metres in height all the way up to the Old Battery where we topped out just over 3 hours later at around 12 noon.

For any parties interested in climbing Skeleton Ridge please note that you require advance permission from the National Trust Administrator on 01983 754772 at the Old Battery and also to notify the Solent Coastguard on 02392 552100 on the day of your climb, before and after so that a rescue is not mounted unnecessarily. Although the climb is technically not that hard or sustained, with the crux 3rd and 6th pitches graded at about 4c, it is a serious and committing adventure requiring a 90 metre abseil into Scratchell Bay and the start of route is extremely tidal so make sure you get down well before low tide or you will be in for a wade or worse. I would recommend leaving a 50 metre rope in-situ at the top of the route due to the lack of anchors whilst most of the belays have an assortment of pegs in varying states of rusting decay which need backing up. We all carried rope ascenders as insurance in case of retreat and used a lot of large slings plus a few hexes and nuts on the route itself. It would also be fair to say that chalk is definitely not required so leave the chalk bags at home... 

Anyway the entertainment was duly recorded so for anyone interested in viewing a short video featuring kestrels, time lapses chalky shenanigans, exposure on steroids plus some aerial drone footage then this is the story of our trip:

All constructive feedback welcome, please feel free to share and hopefully it will inspire a few of you lovely people to hop on a ferry to visit the Isle of Wight and climb on one of the great adventure routes of the UK! :-)

Cheers and Happy Climbing!

Dave