Brimham Revisited, 10th July 2009

Another excellent day saw us waste no time in getting back to Brimham.

Rich had found that there was a third Hard Severe (HS) on the Dancing Bear, nestling between the two we did on Monday.

Rich, Rach, Jacko and an increasingly worried Davie headed off to kill this bear for good, however, on arrival we decided to try a different area in Brimham, leaving the HS route for when Speirsy comes with us on the 17th...

We ended up doing two routes the first is Cracked Corner listed as a V.Diff in my book. Rich kindly let me lead and got stuck in from the off. The first part was a bit tricky but some great gear placement opportunities took the risk away and I settled into the climb quite well...until....

...I arrived at a ledge with a huge overhang above it. My trusty belayer advised that I should shuffle out onto the ledge and go over this. Trying like hell not to look back or down, I shuffled along this precipice in a fashion more akin to escaping from a tarts bedroom window than a professional climber.

At last I summoned the will to stand up and have a grope for a hold.

Scary moment. There was nothing but smooth rock all around and I was aware that I was leaning backwards over the edge to do so. Discretion is the better part...and all that, so I got back onto my knees to beat a hasty retreat.

I climbed the edge and got back onto the overhang from above and settled down to get the others up.

Jack and Rach were first up, followed by Rich, who on arrival, announced that I'd taken the correct route (thank God) and, more to the point, having consulted the hand book of the climbers next to us, this route had been upgraded from VDiff to Severe 4a....

Boy was I pleased at that!

We then moved to a real V.Diff and one that was unlikely to have been upgraded, Lichen Slab. Famous as an abseil training ground, the slab is very polished with little protection until you are at the top.

It would have been possible to solo this, but I decided to place some gear at the top crack.

Rach was next up, followed by Jack and Rich on a shared rope.

....and another 2 were in the bag - one of them a surprise Severe.

We all skipped back for ice creams and back to the car...adventure over....

Plenty more to go at in Brimham...just hope the weather holds.

Davie