Night Climbin’

Forget night clubbing’, night climbing is the thing to do as the dark evenings draw in!

One September evening, I’d been taking photos of Wilton Quarry at sunset from a favourite vantage point that overlooks a distinctive promontory of rock called the Prow. As I’d had the best of the blue hour light, I was starting to pack up when I heard voices below me in the quarry. Turns out two climbers were just arriving at the Prow for a spot of night climbing.

They saw me too and suggested I stayed to take some photos, an offer I certainly couldn’t refuse!

I knew the lighting conditions would be really tricky, but I had my tripod, so I gave it a go. The results are understandably grainy as I had to use the max ISO setting and balance aperture with shutter speed to avoid taking too many blurry shots.

I watched as the first climber easily scaled the west facing flank of the Prow and reached the top, some 45 feet above the climbers starting point.

Once the rope was secured, the second climber started up the route.

Again, this climber didn’t seem to have any difficulty whatsoever in speedily reaching the top of the Prow.

I’d like to thank Max Pendleton and his friend for letting me take photos of them that evening and for giving me permission to use these photos. It was great watching you both making this climb look much easier than I’m sure it really was, especially with the added challenge of the dark – pretty awesome stuff really!