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

Sunderland Wall, 29th April 2009

Since I had a business appointment in Sunderland, I thought it would be a good idea to have a go at their climbing wall and to get Rach a few more routes for her log book.

The wall is down at the old Pallion ship yard and their building is one of the old ship building structures; very high and airy.

The climbing wall has an area of 900m2. The competition wall overhangs by a massive 8m, with two adjacent 6m overhangs. There are over 140 routes on the main walls, 90 of which are top-rope routes spread over 32 lines. Grading for the main walls ranges from F3 to F8a (French Sports Grade) or HVD to 6c (British Tech Grade).

We tried everything from 4a through to 5c and I must confess, they were bloody difficult, way harder than similar grades at Sheffield and Leeds.

Aido, the centre manager, tells me he likes to keep them tight so that when you transfer to rock there are no surprises.

All good and well, but the 4c groove I tackled felt like the 6b I fell off at Leeds with Dicko.

We'll be back.... but after a few 6bs....

Davie

ML Training

The Easter holidays saw Rich S partaking in some Mountain Leader training.

Day 1. We startted in the Hills of Cromdale to practice navigation and our introduction to group management and leadership skills. First we climbed to the summit of Sgòr Gaoithe where we practiced walking on bearings and identifying features. Next was over to Carn na Cloiche, using pacing and timing techniques. The pace of the day was tough and by the first evening one of the guys had decided enough was enough and threw his towel in!

Day 2. This was our introduction to steep ground so we head over to Huntly’s Cave. Here we practiced rucksack pulling/pushing, confidence roping and deployment of a safety rope for down climbing, lowering and personal abseils.

Day 3. Expedition. We set off to the Cairngorms for our over night camp. For this part of the course we were put through our paces as group leaders with each of us taking turns to manage the group and navigate. Each time, Pete would take on a different personality and punish us by acting as a difficult child (walking slower or faster than everyone else, continuously asking questions about flora and fauna, running off into the trees, etc) to test our skills. We reached Coire Odhar by 5:00pm to set up camp. From here we would start our night navigation and set off to the summit of Bynack More to watch the sun set.

Day 4. After a cold night on the mountain we set off for some more navigation and a flora/fauna beasting back to the car.

Day 5. River crossings and emergency procedures. A pleasant morning in the B&B garden mocking up river crossings to practice different techniques did not prepare me for the real thing. Top tip, if you must cross a river, find a bridge! All other techniques are horrible!!
The afternoon saw Pete showing a selection of slides with various images of cuts, wounds and broken people. Amazingly, I managed to hold on and remain conscious! With these images in our minds we set out to some near by woodland to practice improvised carries where Shona and I managed to drop Pete on the floor and then I (being the fattest) got a piggy back from Shona (the smallest).

Day 6. Final day of steep ground practice. Back to the Cairngorms and Ciste Crags for some more rucksack pushing and rope deployment.

Verdict. We were blessed with amazing weather, the folk on the course were great and I learnt loads. Brilliant!!

Leeds Wall, 7th April 2009

Today Rach, Jack and Davie were back at the wall to get another couple of routes in Rach's log book.

Started off on some top ropes to loosen off and then progressed to a grade 5 route for Rach to lead and Jack to top rope. Another 5 followed then we had a great lunch in the cafe; well, this is Verdes after all...

We went back out for round two with Davie doing a piddly 4a route and Rach leading on a 6a that saw a long fall before moving to another 6a that she bagged with loads of grit and determination.

Her hands were so pumped she couldn't fill in her log book... happy days!

Another excellent Verdes day out.

Davie

Outdoor First Aid Course, Shrewsbury, 31st March-1st April 2009

It suddenly dawned on me as I was free climbing the Dancing Bear at Brimham Rocks, that if anything untoward happened to me, I was in the hands of Rachael, the qualified life guard...

I'm not knocking the First Aid capabilities of our life guarding cousins, but I wasn't likely to be falling into a large pool face down - if I fell, things were going to break....or bleed.

This was the sick reasoning in my mind this week as Rach and I headed off to Shrewsbury for my second Outdoor First Aid course. There were 17 post grad students attending and it would be fair to say they were a lively bunch.

As always, the course is pretty full on and very practical and I'm pleased to say that Rach passed with flying colours, making a few new friends on the way.

Now we just need to get Slaney through his course to support his ML and we should be well covered. (Note to self - must make sure that its me who does the talk on bleeding for that one!)

If any of you want to get a recognised Level 2 First Aid qualification (not just a bums on seats certificate), then drop me a line or phone me.

Davie

The Foundry, Sheffield and Stanage. 20th March 2009

The sun was shining so we decided to climb indoors... nuff said.

The original plan was to get a few more routes bagged for Rach's CWA but on arrival at the Foundry we found that things had changed since Rich's last visit and all the lead routes were monsters...

Still, we had a bit of a play and managed to get some lead routes cracked, a bit of 'jammin' and some climbing on features only.

The jamming slides (the blue runners) were even harder that the real thing and Rich and Rach struggled a wee bit with their dainty feet.

At long last, having size 11's was to my advantage.

We then headed off for an '18 minutes drive Davie, honest...' trip to Stanage that took us an hour.

By the time we got there, and with other commitments, we couldn't really tackle anything, so just used it as a recce trip for a return visit.

Another great day.

Davie