This huge barrel-shaped sweep of grey rock with its contrasting characters and fine situation is the jewel in Langdale’s climbing crown.

Thus opens the section in the FRCC about Gimmer, and I totally agree. Great rock, quick-drying routes, beautiful views – what’s not to like about Gimmer? With quality routes at a wide variety of grades, it’s hard to know where to start.

For the fourteen years that we lived in Torver, Dow Crag was practically in my back yard. In the summer I could nip up after work and tick off a couple of routes, walking out by headtorch. I occasionally take a client to Dow, if the weather is looking good and we’re looking for lots of mileage. The crag has a special atmosphere, with steep scree sloping down to steely blue Goat’s Water, and views of the gentle lowland and estuaries of the southern edges of Cumbria

The Langdale valley has long been a centre of Lakeland climbing. The FRCC guide to Langdale opens its Historical chapter with this paragraph:

English rock-climbing in the late nineteenth century had been a story of summit seeking – of easy-way finding. Langdale offered no such summits, no such easy ways