Yet More Puntering And A Bit Of Falling Off

Easter seems a long time ago, but other than a slightly damp, windy and generally uninspiring day at Lawrencefield with Oswald and Ripley, where the highlight of the day was an epic onsight crush of an unstarred VS 4b, I've managed to avoid climbing entirely. Curses. Anyway, last weekend found an enthusiastic team of reprobates heading to Gardoms.

I found a horrendous looking Mod with a star, and set about soloing it armed with Adam's oversized brush just in case the going got filthy. Other than some weird dried out slime on the first few holds it was actually quite clean and much better than it looks. I then scared myself silly soloing a couple of VSs I've soloed before, while Adam laid siege to a manky looking Severe crack. After eventually applying more than a Severe's worth of skill, we were all bafflingly possessed by the urge to follow him up it. We all found our own weirdly contorted way of overcoming the crux section - J-Rowe applied a calf-jam, whilst I managed to knee-bar my own knees. After another couple of routes it started to rain. Just as Simon had reached the top crux of Elliott's Buttress Direct. I found a convenient ledge and offered some generous words of advice. Definitely no heckling. Oh no.

Mmm, damp holds...

The following Friday afternoon brought a dry forecast and another team of waifs and strays, this time heading to Stanage. After a brief tussle with an overhang on a VS, and some tomfoolery with Dan on the arete of Topaz (which looked horrendous - Jaime and I stuck with the E1 copout), I fancied a go at some slabby HVS rounded break-hauling on Meiosis. The start was a bit butch, but after a couple of forays to stick a cam in and fettle the holds I went for it. I stretched up for a thin seam, which turned out not to be a hold, and was just wondering how to engineer the extra few inches to reach the break above when my foot popped and I was off. Luckily Jaime was paying attention and other than a slightly mangled finger and a bash on the chin no damage was done.

After a brief moment to gather myself I got back on and gave it the beans to get to the next break. After a rather harrowing few minutes in a very contorted position trying to fiddle some more gear in all was well with the world. The rest of the route was thought-provoking, but altogether less eventful. Huzzah. We finished the day by pootling up a couple more routes whilst Dan engaged in some ethically questionable toproping chicanery in his mad quest to climb all of the routes at the crag.

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