nomadlens
Images of the South West
The Devil’s Slide, Lundy
For most of my youth I was a passionate rock climber, and back in the day we were inspired by Ken Wilson’s timeless books “Classic Rock” and “Hard Rock”. We never got that far with our attempts to tick all the routes therein, and one route known to defeat the majority of aspirants to collecting the full list was the classic ‘Devil’s Slide’ on the west side of Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel.
It did not defeat people because of its difficulty, for by modern standards it is a very easy climb, but because of the difficulties of accessing it. It really requires an overnight visit to Lundy because it is very difficult to fit it into the very few hours afforded by a day trip; the ferry docks at the Southeast corner of the 3 mile long island and these magnificent granite cliffs lie near the Northwest corner.
Last summer I finally paid a visit to Lundy. It is some time now since I last climbed but it was a thrill to finally visit this incredible rock feature, a 400 foot sweep of pink granite, falling from the island plateau down to the Atlantic surf. At last I got to see this climb that had so inspired me in my youth.
Maybe one day I will climb it.
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