Introduction The crags at Craigdews are located within the Wild Goat Park near Newton Stewart. The crags are south facing and quite quick drying, but unfortunately a bird ban rules out climbing during the springtime. This page was compiled by John Biggar, a professional Mountaineering Instructor and member of the AMI, who lives locally. Contact me if you want to know more about climbing in Galloway. This page was compiled with care, but it is not guaranteed error free.
Access The access is easy and extremely short for Galloway. To get to the Goat Park drive along the A712 from Newton Stewart towards New Galloway. You'll see the crag very obvious on the north side of the road from the parking area (for the Goat Park). The walk to the crag is just 5 or 10 minutes, to get the driest ground head to the obvious White Slab first, then from here to the other areas of the crag. Despite the fact that this is a managed "Wild Goat Park" climbing currently seems to be tolerated fine by the Forestry Commission. But watch out for the goats eating all your sandwiches and chewing their way through your new rucksack and ropes..... There is a bird ban here in the springtime.
Guidebook A small selection of the better routes that I have done are shown in the diagram below, for full details you will need the SMC "Lowland Outcrops" guidebook, 2004 edition. The climbing is on granite, generally very good rock but there are some damp patches particularly on the slabs. Protection can be hard to find as many of the cracks are flaring. The longest routes, such as Das Goat and Central Route are up to 100m long, although quite broken.
There are several climbing areas, from leftish to rightish these are
White Slab
Main Cliff
Ramp Slabs
Tree Walls
Descents Descent routes are obvious, down the various grassy gullies and rakes.
White Slab
Very nice rock giving relaxing routes of up to 12m long. You'll need some smallish cams for the belay which is better than described in the 2004 guidebook. Three routes are described in the SMC guidebook and we've added a couple of lines since.
Main Cliffs
Some good pitches on great rock and lots of heather ledges make up the Main cliffs. As with most of this climbing area, indeed most of Galloway, the rock is generally good when you are on it. The quickest descent from most routes is down to the right (facing the crag).
Ramp Slabs
Climbing on the ramp slabs, note the unusual runner - a "draped" sling weighted with a boot...! The last gear for 10m so it was worth it.
On the right of the crags are the ramp Slabs, these give some nice climbing, though much more exciting for the leader than the second. Protection is generally poor to none existent. A useful tip is to take mid-size slings to tie-off around some of the marginal placements over "nodules", and also something to weight them down. Parts of some of the routes are mossy, but this really does not affect the grade or climbing much - any moss on a hold you need is easily removed. Two routes are described in the guidebook and we've added a couple of lines since. All these routes really need a 60m rope though you could belay at the crucial runners.
