Base Brown via Taylor Gill Force, Lakes, 22 May 2009

As part of Rich's consolidation period for his ML in October, we decided to pay a visit to the Lakes to practice decision making, navigation and route finding.

Of course, playing my part as 'paying punter', I also expected to be entertained during the walk and to have rock types and geology, weather systems, flora and fauna and wildlife all explained to me at the same time.

It's great fun being a punter!

We arrived at the start of our route, which Rich told me was within our capabilities. Not a route for the faint hearted, it was definitely a Verdes spectacular and after a rather 'hairy' traverse that saw John Dicko lose a few pounds on our last outing, he informed me we would be heading up the scramble to the summit.

The grade 3 scramble. Not the quiet, laid back precursor to some retail therapy in Keswick that I had been expecting, but a sphincter puckering, 'smell the fear' session that I would be lucky to escape.

But I knew I was in good hands... my ML aspirant sherpa hasn't fallen ....yet.

We set off up the initial scrambles and to be fair, other than some wet rocks and mossy holds, progress was straightforward. There was a fair bit of exposure though and if you DID fall it was a good 600ft until you came to rest.

I tried to keep this in mind as hold after hold came away in my hands.

The final frontier arrived after a while and I could sense that this was the defining moment; the moment where you check that the will is up to date, your insurance premiums are paid and that you are indeed wearing clean underwear.

Before us was a 6m wall that was overgrown, wet, mossy, scary and various other superlatives. My trusty ML sherpa disappeared up the wall like a rat up a knicker leg, leaving me to contemplate both the task ahead and the colossal drop behind me.

Fall on this one and you are toast.

I made a start and quickly realised that sherpa boy was struggling too on a route bereft of holds and with moss aplenty. Breaking with the Verdes motto, I stupidly looked both back and down and my fears were confirmed; retreat was simply not an option.

Taking stock of my predicament, I tried to find the positives: my right foot was smearing on some heather, but not on any hold. My left was in a similar position. My left hand couldn't find anything whatsoever that gave GRIP never mind a HOLD. But on the positive side, the piece of heather my right hand was clinging to seemed to be holding my 17 stone quivering frame nicely.

That was good enough for me!

I gave it a good hard pull and used the momentum to reach up with my left hand, finding a decent hold for a one armed pull up; an easy feat of strength when you have 700 feet on SFA behind your arse.

A couple of scrabbly moves and I was perched beside sherpa boy, grinning like a maniac.

We still had some scrambling to do, but nothing like this last set of moves and the summit was gained after a fine lunch and some resection drills on the side of Base Brown.

Naturally, we just had to finish with some retail therapy and a coffee in Keswick.

Adventurous? Damn right! Therapeutic? Certainly!

Another great Verdes day out.... Cheers Rich! good effort from the young ML...

Davie

Pillar via Haystacks, May 14th 2009.

Julia Bradbury and that Wainwright bloke have a lot to answer for! After a conversation with my father-in-law regarding a recent BBC TV programme featuring those two a trip was planned to visit the Lake District to climb Haystacks and Pillar.

With the weather forecast suggesting we could encounter winds gusting up to 50mph a start at Honister pass was decided as this would give us a chance to feel the strength of the wind at a reasonable height once we got out the car. If it was bad we could get back down and spend a day of retail therapy in Keswick.

It wasn’t bad. In fact the weather was great; overcast but good visibility and little wind.

The route from Honister was very easy and we were at the summit of Haystacks after an hour and a half with a great view of Pillar and the route ahead in front of us.

We descended via the Scarth Gap Pass to the Ennerdale Valley before starting our climb straight up to the summit of Pillar. The route through the crags was grassy and relentlessly vertical with some tricky steps mainly due to wet rocks.

We stopped at Pillar Rock where the ascent eased to take in the views before pushing on along more rocky terrain.

Our decent took us via Black Sail Pass back down to the Ennerdale Valley where we were joined by a greedy Chaffinch for lunch.

Our route back was via the climb to Grey Knotts the down into the Slate Mine for a cuppa tea!

Rich S

Leeds Wall, 15th May 2009

Yet another great day at the 'local' wall.

Rach, Rich and Davie planned to get the highest grades we could under our belts both on top ropes and on lead climbs.

Rach bagged a load of 6a and 6b routes and led on a 4.... what a come down!

Rich tackled a couple of 6bs, bagged a 6a and led on the 4. The 'also ran' (Davie) managed a 6a, fell off a 6b and led the 'rather tricky and not to be sniffed at' 4 that his buddies had bagged earlier.

Leeds is a great wall with brilliant facilities - you should get along...

Davie

Nostalgia trip - Symonds Yat, 1990

Found a couple of pics that I had sent round featuring my first ever climbing route - Vertigo, the 'original' route to the top of Longstone pinnacle (aka Needle Rock).

I seem to remember it being bloody hard at the beginning and as I was about to peel off, a leap of faith found an old bit of metal work that allowed me to pull myself up a bit. The rest from there to the top was straightforward.

The guidebook gives it a Severe rating, but I'm sure that must have been for the lower part of the route; once you were past the old hook it was easier.

I do remember being on top and looking down at my mates, some canoeing in the Wye and some in the caves below.

Oh, and being really scared on top.

Still get the Elvis legs just looking at it and can still hear the instructor bawling at me to reach up - that there WAS a hook to grab.

Happy days...

Davie

Harborough Rocks

A short notice opportunity arose today to get some climbing in. A phone call from my mate Tim telling me he had a couple of hours to kill was all that was needed for a trip to a Limestone crag just outside Matlock. However, the weather in the Peak District was nothing like the sun the rest of the country was enjoying.
The crag is blessed with some fantastic juggy and pockected rock that gives confident holds on short routes. Due to the fact that there are a lot of easy routes, the area is very popular and the routes are quite polished making the climbs tricky in the wet.
We started with ‘Steep Ridge’, a 10m VDiff.

Next we moved over to the Steeple area and climbed ‘Overhanging Wall Variant’, another VDiff.

Both routes were attracting the rain but we noticed that the east face of the crag was keeping dry so we set off to find something that we could climb without sliding around. We found the end wall (The Arête) was dry but the two dry routes listed in my guide book were both VS, a 6m 5a and a 6m 4b.

Having never led a VS we decided to start with ‘Legs Over’, the 6m 4b.
The only place I could find to place any gear was at the top of the route which is probably why it’s a VS but we managed the climb before the rain came again.
A good couple of hours at an excellent crag.

Rich S