Norwin

Klubbruta on Eidetind. Check out that shadow...

Good things about Lofoten:
1) It's the most ludicrously beautiful place I've ever been to. It's almost impossible to find a direction to look that isn't utterly stunning. Spiky mountains, beautiful clear lakes, clear blue sea everywhere, and rock everywhere else.
2) The rock is perfect. Fine-grained granite which from afar looks blank except for the cracks, but on closer acquaintance is covered in tiny edges and dimples, allowing apparently improbable lines to be climbed at amenable grades.
3) The cracks. Bloody hell. The cracks. Perfect sinker cracks abound; from thin snaking cracks which only just give up a finger-lock every few feet, through incredible parallel hand-cracks that go on forever, to seductively beautiful offwidths (OK, maybe that last one is just me).
4) The gear is amazing. Except for the terrifying bold slabs of doom (and you can see those coming), gear is almost entirely of the on-demand variety.
5) Almost everything is the right side of vertical.
6) The pitches are rarely below 35-40, long. Maximum bang for your buck.
7) Some of the routes go on for ever. Pitch after pitch of brilliant climbing.
8) Norwegians are all super-friendly.
9) They have really nice bread.
10) They also have amazing bizarro caramel cheese.
11) Given how totally ace it is, there's basically nobody else there.
12) Norwegian wildlife >> British wildlife (they have sea eagles and elk and shit).

Bad things about Lofoten:
1) Everything is really expensive. Really, really expensive.
2) Norwegian's can't work car parks at all. Perhaps it's their only form of rebellion against a very punitive legal system, but they don't seem to be happy unless they're parked across at least 2, preferably 3 bays.
3) There are motorhomes everywhere. Boo.
4) Cafes appear not to understand the concept of tea, beyond the wrongness of Earl Grey.
5) Norwegian climbing grades take no account of protection (or lack thereof), which is sometimes a bit unhelpful when you can't see the 8th pitch of your route from the ground and want to know if it's HVS 5b or E3 5b.
5) Erm, that's about it.

So, what did I do in the 2 weeks I was there?...

Day 1:  Flew in to Bodo, via Oslo, picked up our hire car and drove up the coast, our eyes bulging more with each new incredible looking probably unclimbed enormo-crag that we passed (and there were a lot of those). After a few hours we reached Bognes, hopped over the ferry to Skaberget and drove the last few miles to the foot of Stetind. Which looked incredible. And quite snowy.

Stetind. Mmmmm.

Day 2:  After some friendly Swedes confirmed that they had been turned back the day before by snow high on the ridge, we sacked our plans for Sydpillaren (alas) and headed instead for Eidetind, another nearby beautiful mountain, with a few 4/5 pitch routes around HS-HVS. We arrived at the base of the crag just ahead of aforementioned friendly Swedes, and managed to successfully monopolise the route they had come there to climb. Oops. Klubbruta turned out to be a very pleasant 5 pitches to get us into the swing of things though. After bog-hopping our way back to the car we ferried ourselves over to Lodingen and drove along the Lofoten islands to the free campsite by the beach at Kalle. Fully equipped with all of the luxuries a traveller could need (i.e. a tap and a very aromatic toilet) as well as a beautiful view we made ourselves at home.

Our campsite at Kalle

Day 3: After shopping for supplies in Svolvaer we got into the swing of things with the 5 pitch easy classic Pianohandler Lunds Rute on the amusingly named Pianokrakken. Then Si, Claire and I puntered up Applecake Arete, which confusingly went nowhere near any aretes, but did have a nice VS 5a crack at the top. As we packed our stuff away and waited for Julie and Andy to finish climbing we spotted a party climbing an attractive looking buttress on the other side of the fjord which intriguingly wasn't in the guidebook.

Day 4: Claire had cunningly lost her passport in the airport at Bodo, so whilst her and Si went into town to investigate the Police station the rest of us went to the well named Paradiset, which was like a good version of Sennen. We had a pleasant potter around and I won a free quickdraw. Whoop.

Day 5: After yesterday's single pitchings we were keen for something on a slightly larger scale, so we investigated the roadside delights of Gandalf, a 100m high chunk of granitey loveliness covered in cracks glorious cracks. The eponymous Gandalf and Gollum were excellent VSs, and Guns 'n' Roses a very nice HVS with a nice little burly tussle to get established in a crack on the second pitch. Our day was also  enlivened by some mysterious Americans who may or may not have been squaddies shouting things like "Dude, you're facing a groundfall, set some pro. Duuuuuude!", and generally being utterly incompetent.

Day 6: We decided to bite the bullet and join the reputedly eternal queues on Bare Blabaer. We arrived to find a party of 5 climbing on one rope (managing to be both sensible and considerate all at the same time, lovely), and another pair waiting to start, but once we got going things sped up. The route was incredible, with 3 of the best pitches of 4b crack climbing it's possible to imagine. And a bonus in situ no. 10 nut for me. Yay.

Crackgasms on Bare Blabaer

Day 7: The forecast was for rain the following day, so with Si and Claire heading back into Svolvaer for some more passport-related faffery, Julie, Andy and I got up unreasonably early and prepared for battle with Vestpillaren, the mega-classic 12 pitch E2 up the incredible slab of Presten. Conveniently there were 3 crux pitches, which we had split between us with Andy getting the technical crux on pitch 3, Julie getting the sustained (and I thought still bloody hard) groove/crack thing on pitch 7 and me getting the 'Slanting Corner' on pitch 9. After finding the first couple of pitches pretty easy I was feeling confident, and Andy's technical crux was over fairly quickly, but pitch 6 had some hidden challenging delights, and I found pitch 7 hard, and pitch 8 was laybacking (urgh), so I wasn't feeling at my very freshest when my big lead came round. Andy helpfully pointed out that it was the most famous pitch on the most famous route in Norway, which was exactly what I wanted to hear, and I couldn't see any holds for the first 10m or so, but I stuffed my face with lovely gelatinous Mega-Roulette sweets and decided that I would probably aid it when I inevitably fell off.
To my great surprise there were actually a few holds, and none of the moves were too hard, although none of them were that easy either, so when I reached the belay ledge and could take my shoes to liberate my entombed heels I was feeling pretty good about life the universe and everything. Psychologically we all felt like the route was in the bag now, with only easy climbing left, but after 400m of climbing and almost 10 hours on the route, Andy found some bonus amusement on a 5a traverse with his last gear a distant memory and the promised peg nowhere to be seen. Oh how we laughed. Thankfully nobody fell off and we all reached the top and managed to negotiate the scrambly ridge of peril which took us to the descent path. So, my first E2, probably the longest route I've ever climbed, and certainly the best. Not a bad day out really.

Presten in all its glory.

Day 8: Rain. I didn't mind as I needed a rest after 46 pitches and 1500m of climbing in 6 days. We treated ourselves to a shower in Svolvaer and dinner in the climber's cafe in Henningsvaer. I went so far as to buy a beer. At £8 I didn't feel the need for more than one.

Day 9: More rain. A bit annoying, but I was still aching, so it wasn't too bad.

Day 10: More rain. OK, fed up of not climbing. We plumbed new depths of entertainment by wandering round new supermarkets with no intention of buying anything. What fun. It did stop raining for a bit so we went to check out a little sport-climbing crag by the sea, but we didn't climb anything.

Day 11: After more rain overnight we headed for Finnvika, the sport crag by the sea. It was quite pleasant (although maybe I was just delusional after 3 days of not climbing). The crag classic Drommen Om Michaela was actually really rather good, with plenty of secret tiny crimps allowing the route to cover some improbably blank-looking ground. Convinced that the proper crags would now have dried out a bit we relocated back to Gandalf, where Simon and I got on Tromso Ekspressen, which Claire and Andy had recommended. It looked hard from below, but turned out to be fairly steady and pretty low in the grade at E1. Aceness.

Day 12: Having identified the mysterious route we'd seen people climbing on day 3 as Fish Restaurant, a 3 star, 11 pitch VS/HVS with a topo, but no description, in the Rockfax update to the guide, Si, Claire and I were keen for an adventure. We got an adventure. Of the 11 pitches one was a walk, 2 (both my leads) were Gogarthian travails up slightly off-vertical moss and heather, and one involved laybacking up a huge, booming, wafer-thin flake with your only gear behind said flake. Claire got that pitch, the lucky thing. That said the climbing was actually quite nice in places, and the fact that we were just following a dotted line on a topo rather than a proper description made it all feel quite entertaining. Unfortunately the entertainment coefficient took a nose-dive on the descent, which was dismissed as "Scramble down the grassy gully" or something similarly trivial in the guide. A more accurate description would be "Scramble down the gully, not the first or second gullies of precipitous death, but the third gully. The one full of loose boulders, mud and mosquitoes. Make 3 abseils, the first off a collection of scrawny trees, the second of a collection of scrawny trees and the third off a single, very wobbly tree (which you can back up with another wobbly tree) passing the ominous remains of a previous party's rope flayed against the rock. Try not to get too wet or muddy, kill any of your friends by dislodging rocks on their heads, die of blood loss from too many insect bites or break your ankles falling down any holes and for the love of god don't slip and fall".

Claire and the temporary flake of infinite terror

Day 13: Feeling a little battered after the descent of peril Si, Claire and I visited the conventional delights of the Svolvaer goat, whilst Julie and Andy went questing for adventures (and found them) on Trollfestingen. We climbed the very classic 5 pitch VS to the horns, before I nipped up the equally classic 1910 Ruta with Claire whilst Simon sunbathed. On returning to the campsite we discovered that a coach party of 50 or so Czech cyclists had camped in a large circle around our tents, and were hellbent on making as much noise as possible (aided and abetted by a mandolin, a guitar and a trumpet), seeing if they could make the toilets overflow with the combined volume of their effluent and generally being selfish arseholes. So we spent the evening drinking whisky, sitting in the car and thought malevolent thoughts.

Day 14: Si and Claire were broken, so I joined Julie and Andy at Festvag for some classic-ticking. After doing the crux of Lundeklubben, a classic E1, I managed to fall off a wet hold, which was tremendously annoying. But I got straight back on it and didn't fall off this time, and it did leave me with some reasonably good scars for my troubles. Julie then led the slightly soggy, but thoroughly amazing Skier, which was totally unlike every other route we did on Lofoten in that it was steep, but covered in enormo-jugs. We rounded the holiday off on Gaukerisset, which offered one of the best pitches of climbing of the whole trip (and therefore ever). 10m of indifferent climbing led to a tricksy little 5b traverse which gained an incredible flake that led the remaining 30m to the top of the crag. Like Heaven Crack if it was harder and 3 times as long. Brilliant.

Day 15: Time to leave Lofoten. Sad times. Julie and Andy got up early for a quick ascent of Gandalf whilst we lazed around, then we headed into Svolvaer for another shower and to catch the ferry over to Skutvik on the mainland. We stayed at a campsite next to a weird river connecting a lake to the sea, which changed direction in the middle of the night when the tide rose. Most odd.

Day 16: Drove back to Bodo, flew home. Heathrow at 11:30pm was a miserable experience. It was dark for the first time in 2 weeks and it was raining. Boo.

So, to paraphrase Sir Chris Bonnington, Lofoten was totes amazeballs. It might be expensive, but it's sure as hell worth it...

As a slight epilogue, I did get to Froggatt on Sunday for DrDanDanDan's homecoming/leaving again shindig, and wandered my way up Three Pebble Slab without any problems, but that really is barely worth a mention in the context of all the Norwegian awesomeness.

Inauspicious Limestonery

After my first trip to Norway this month passed with little climbing interest beyond ogling some incredible looking cliffs from a boat and getting comprehensively shut down by Stavanger's bouldering wall. I failed to get to the top of a single problem. Mostly because all the easy problems were about 10m high, and everything else overhung by about 2m for every 1m of up. Brutal.

So on my temporary return to England I was keen to get some mileage in. Jaime and I paid a visit to Ravensdale one evening, which I'd quite enjoyed last time. This time round I found myself climbing a polished, unprotected crack full of dead birds directly above the belay, then traversing over some massive wobbly blocks to a big ledge. From here the guide helpfully suggested I go up, passing a peg somewhere. The wall above was about 5m wide, with no visible pegs and nothing resembling a line. Bah. I picked a random combination of polished holds and snappy crimps and teetered upwards, with every move blind to what might lie above. After a harrowingly long time I reached a poor nut behind a rattly flake. More blind questing upwards revealed a peg (who knows if it was the right one, it certainly wasn't very good) and some more rattly blocks. Finally I got my hands over the top of the crag and was rewarded for my efforts with a proper gear placement. I was very glad for this whilst scrabbling around in the grass in search of some holds to top out with. A quintessential Peak limestone experience - lineless, rubbish, loose and with uninspiring gear. At least it wasn't too polished.

I spent the weekend in Bristol staying at the Chateau de Gray, so the obvious thing to do was go climbing in the Avon Gorge. Mmm. We arrived to discover that the road was closed for some kind of bike ride, which was a pleasant surprise, making communication between climbers possible for a change. We had selected a couple of single pitch HVSs at the left-hand end of Main Wall for our days entertainment, but having negotiated the approach scramble and flaked out the ropes, Oli discovered he'd left his rock shoes in the car. At the top of the crag. Idiot.

Luckily the sun was out, so I sunned myself whilst Oli abseiled back to the ground, ran around to the top of the crag where the car was parked, and ran back again. Well, he said he ran. He took a very long time and didn't seem that out of breath when I got back, so I'm not entirely convinced. Anyway, after all of this faffage he set off up the charmingly named The Corpse. There was a rather unreasonably bold, tricky section low down, but once through this the rest was reasonable, sustained climbing (at least for quarried limestone). I seconded like an idiot, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get over the unreadability of the rock, but it was a fun little excursion. Sadly we didn't have time for another route, but we did get a lovely roast dinner cooked for us, so it wasn't all bad.

Some lineless limestone bollocks...

So I'm off to Lofoten on Saturday. I'm incredibly psyched, but don't feel as if I'm as prepared as I'd really like. I've only really managed 2 decent climbing trips since March and haven barely been to the wall. Which is not exactly the optimal training for 12 pitch E2s like Vestpillaren. Still, if it worked for Whillans in the Himalayas, maybe it'll work for me...

Getting The Summer Back On Track

In the face of a confusing forecast and some major indecision, young James, Jon Stewart and I had some plan-faffery on Friday, with all options between Bude and Stranraer considered and discarded at some point, some more than once. Eventually we found a willing 4th man called Dan in Conwy and set off for North Wales. We planned a spot of gritstone action on the way over, but it was freezing at Stanage, so we sacked that in fairly quickly.

When we picked him up Dan seemed rather vague, but it turned out that he hadn't slept for 72 hours, so I think that can be forgiven. After some more plan-changing chicanery and a nice kebab at the Conwy Kebab House, we ended up at Mr. Ripley's house in Bangor for a few beers and a meeting of the great minds of UKC. Or something. Tom let us doss on his floor, and after a refreshing light snack breakfast in Mike's Bites we drove over to Gogarth, where it was freezing. I persuaded the others that the crag would be sheltered so we headed over towards the Upper Tier. I was right as ever, but I made up for this by sandbagging myself like an idiot on the first route of the day. Given free choice of route I opted for Central Park, which has a first pitch described as "mediocre" and "serious". At HVS 5a. Well done me.

Jon on Fail Safe

It turned out to be both mediocre and serious, as well as being a bit damp and vegetated. I was quite pleased to get to the belay in one piece and discover that the second pitch looked ace. It was, although quite steep and tough for the grade. Hoping that it might be damp and I could then bail onto something easier whilst still maintaining an aura of respectability, I racked up for Emulator next. It wasn't wet. It was awesome. Sustained bridging and jamming with impeccable gear, a few good rests and the final move is the crux. Well worth its three stars.

Oswald near the top of Emulator

We finished the day on The Gauntlet, which had a start that looked like an easy slab, but James somehow climbed as an overhanging groove (there must be some kind of physics anomaly going on on that bit of the crag). At the belay James learnt the benefits of rope management after somehow throwing a massive knotted ball of rope back down the pitch. I led through up an improbable looking 4b corner and then a world of that special Gogarth mud/heather/shattered rock stuff that it does so well. All the while having to stop ever few feet whilst James untied another knot in the ropes. What fun.

We dropped Dan back off home and spent the night at Ynys Ettws, before heading down to Tremadog. Jon was labouring under the mistaken impression that it was a rubbish crag, so we were determined to prove him wrong. Since there were three of us we decided to pick a route we each really wanted to do and just get on with it, rather than faff around. Jon went first, leading The Weaver in one huge pitch. The route finds a way up the left hand side of the Vector buttress, with a lot of 5b and a fair amount of 5c for good measure. Eventually after a whole lot of climbing it meets the top pitch of Vector and everything suddenly gets very polished. This helpfully coincides with a really difficult sequence to pass a well chalked undercut. Jon and James used some kind of laybacking tomfoolery whilst I attacked it with sexy wide bridging, but we all agreed that it felt pretty damn hard. A great route though, and nice to have finally done a route on the proper side of such a classic bit of rock.

I was up next and keen for Grim Wall Direct. I was secretly hoping some morons would abseil down it whilst I was climbing so I could tie their ropes off in a fit of righteous indignation, but I was denied that pleasure and had to console myself with the climbing, which was lovely. A tricky little crack and one of those bold slabs that gets easier as the gear recedes into the distance on pitch one, followed by a few exciting moves up to and round a little roof and a spicy little move right at the top. It'd be worth 3 stars if it wasn't stuck in a grotty gully. James rounded the day off with another very long pitch starting up the tricky groove of Leg Break, across an exciting slab between Grim Wall and Meshach, and through the top roof of Blinkers to the left of Shadrach. A quality pitch with an awful lot of good climbing on it.

After another night at Ynys, Jon fancied a day of easier soloing and scrambling about, so he wandered off up to the Parson's Nose whilst the youth and I made for Dinas Mot. I led Lorraine Direct, which was a classy HVS pitch with plenty of that bold, pockety slab climbing that the crag is famous for. Next we did West Rib, with me leading another long, bold HVS pitch in the middle (featuring an exciting run out above an RP3 again). James finished up the striking E1 finger crack of The Chain, although he spoilt things by placing way too much gear and falling off as a result. It's a brilliant pitch, and wouldn't make a bad first E1, being relatively short, not too strenuous and super safe.

James seconding Lorraine Direct

We finished the trip with a little adventure on Diagonal. James led the first pitch easily enough, but I frightened myself somewhat on the second. It was only about 15 metres long, but other than a good cam right at the start, there was no gear and quite a lot of 5a until quite near the top. Nice climbing though. The third pitch has been billed as the main event, with a reputation for boldness, so I nearly had a heart attack when James fell off it. Somehow he managed to do it above the good runner placement, so crisis was averted. At least temporarily. After doing the hard moves easily enough the second time round he disappeared off above. I was expecting him to scramble up to below the final looming crack (which my tired arms weren't very excited about leading), but he seemed to take an age and I started to get rather chilly sitting on my belay perch in the middle of a sea of slabs. Eventually he re-appeared questing up some dirty looking cracks off to one side. Apparently he'd interpreted the instructions to belay below the headwall as "Carry on to the top and make sure you don't follow all of the polish and chalk". Later consultation with the guidebook revealed it to have been the finish to West Rib, which was in fact the original top pitch of Diagonal. So Oswald was clearly just channelling Arthur Birtwistle. Or being an idiot.

All told it was an awesome trip. I'm very psyched for some more climbing. And it's sunny. But I have an exam to revise for and then a conference in Norway, so it might be a while before I get out on rock again. Bah. Sometimes life can be so very unfair...

A Light Dose Of Mild Esoterica

It's been a long month since Easter. A month full of rain and no climbing of any sort whatsoever. Oh dear. On the plus side I have booked a trip to Lundy in September and appear to have persuaded Oswald of the merits of some kind of Carnmore/Old Man of Hoy type adventure in August. Anyway, I had last Friday off, but the forecast was hellawindy and showery, so the only logical choice of venue seemed to be Rivelin, in spite of there being precisely no routes there I wanted to climb. I'm still mostly holding a grudge about the Altar Crack fiasco last year.

We started off with James staunchly refusing to recognise the difference between a blunt rib and a slab, but once he'd overcome this he led the pleasant, if rather eliminate Don't Birch The Doc, although he lost man points for a lack of moral fortitude in using the arete near the top. Being the bastion of morality that I am I atoned for his sins with an ethically clean ascent. Then I led a pointless little arete and followed James up another pleasant slabby HVS.

After this we felt inspired for a little bit of adventure, so we headed leftwards into the mythical Rivelin Quarries. They turned out to be a bit less cack than I was expecting, with a fair number of quite impressive lines. Admittedly most of them were E6s, but they did look good. There was also the legendary Rhododendron Crack. It looked awesome, but sadly I'd left the big bro and secateurs at home, so it will have to wait for another day...

Behold the infinite majesty of Rhododendron Crack. Ooooh.

I consoled myself with the prospect of a new crag point, and led off up one of the few dry lower grade lines. Woozle Direct even had a star. It was ill deserved. Pushy, unprotected climbing followed by some hollow holds and then some wetness (I lied about it being dry). Luckily there was some proper gear halfway up. Unluckily there was some vegetable interest on the top out. Boo.

Is this the bit that gets the star?

It started to spit at this stage, but the youth was undeterred and got wrestling with the unprotected start of a nice, but bold looking E1. It turned out to be very nice, but really quite bold. Allegedly it used to be E2 and I can see why. A good lead from young James. I was all set to give the adjacent HVS a go when the heavens opened, so we skulked off back home. Not a bad little sojourn into the undergrowth. I will be back. With big cams. And some agent orange.

E Is For Easter

Excuse the tardy update. Some bugger gave me some work to do. Outrageous. Anyway, when I last left you I was lying in bed whilst the rain hammered down outside, sulking about the injustices of awful weather. Eventually I managed to coax myself into the real world with the lure of baking and a possibly climbable forecast for the Wednesday afternoon. T'internets came up trumps for a random partner, so 24 hours later I was sitting in a car park in Ambleside with a freshly baked lamb dhansak pie in the passenger seat, waiting for a man called Frith. It had been snowing in the morning, and it was blowing a gale, but the sun was out and I was full of unreasonable optimism.

Man Of Straw

Frith turned out to be a friend of a friend, and a general good egg, which was nice. We decided that White Ghyll might combine the holy trinity of being in the sun, out of the wind, and not covered in snow, and it was. We had the crag to ourselves, and had a brilliant afternoon climbing Moss Wall, Laugh Not, Do Not Direct and Man Of Straw. None of which felt desperate, being well supplied with small, positive holds. Man Of Straw was particularly satisfying, being a proper E1 and everything (although I'm having the E point for the second pitch of Do Not Direct too, as falling off the 5a moves would have been a tremendously poor idea).

I spent the evening in the CC hut in Grange, before meeting my second random internetter, Phil, in the car park below Black Crag. It was chilly, but the sky was blue and we had the crag to ourselves again. We romped up Troutdale Pinnacle Direct and The Coffin (with its rather character building gogarthesque finishing pitch with an added frozen moss cornice for good measure), wrestled with Obituary Grooves (which has quite a lot of very for a VS) and struggled up The Shroud (including a rather lonely and ill-advised rematch with the now-defrosted moss cornice at the very end of the ropes some distance past my last gear, all a little type II fun). A cracking day out in spite of the vegetable interest.

Dan was right - vegetables are evil...

Good Friday was a bit rainy and uninspiring, but luckily team win (comprising Matt, John, Mo, Stacey and Chris) had chosen the super-psychetastic venue of Windmore End. But apparently it was wet, so I met them skulking in an unpronounceable tea shop in Brough and hatched a plan to sample the delights of Jackdaw Scar. Everyone was a bit underwhelmed when we arrived, but after waiting an age for my phone to download the pdf guide we found some reasonable looking stuff and generally had a gay old time.

 The forecast seemed friendly for Saturday, so we got up super-early to secure a car parking spot in Langdale. Turns out everyone else is supremely lazy as we were the 5th car there at about 9 o'clock. There was a little residual dampness when we arrived, so J-Ro and I warmed up with a pleasant little Severe on the top slabs, before an unprecedented bout of manning up saw me setting off up the crux pitch of Forget-Me-Not, an E1 on the same slab. An easy traverse led to a good RP3 placement, before a couple of hard moves and then some sustained 5a crimping for what felt like a very, very long time with the RP becoming ever more of a distant memory, led to the belay. Phew. I soloed the other Severe whilst waiting for James to make his way down the descent rake and we moved down the crag. A quick bamber up Slip Knot left it as my route choice, so I decided to push my luck and get on an E1+, The Palestinians. I placed far too much gear (although in my defence none of it was incredibly confidence inspiring) and it felt quite tricky, but thankfully the looming overhang near the top turned out to be jug-infested, and we were soon hurrying back down to the car, with Masood's mega-curry awaiting us.

Claire having a three star time on Haste Not

Easter Sunday saw J-Ro and I do a bit of pottering at Gouther until some terminal drizzle set in just as we were getting warmed up, and the rain didn't stop all of Monday, so I ended up at the Depot in Leeds feeling weak before an appointment with the mighty Pelican that evening. A rifftastic end to a rather spiffing few days.

3 Days Of Win... And Some Welshness

The last 5 days started and ended with some serious sulking, but there's been a fair amount of winning in between, so I'll concentrate on that. Last Thursday, after some other plans fell through, a hastily-organised trip to Stanage with Lizzie materialised. She was pretty much fresh off the boat from two years in exotic far off lands (with no rock in them), so she needed reminding about the delights of grit.


Luncheon de victoire...

We sauntered up to the slabs just left of High Neb, with me in a t-shirt and Lizzie wearing about 5 thermals and a fleece. There was a wee Severe in the graded list that I'd not yet ticked, so I started with that. Lizzie made an admirable effort at making it look substantially harder than Severe, and even tried avoiding all the holds and climbing a different route entirely for a few moves, but eventually she remembered what it was all about.

Next I led a very pleasant VS 5a called Rinty, which a few years ago I would have found desperate. There were no positive footholds, just lots of sloping nonsense, but the handholds and gear were good. It felt fairly easy. It seems that a little bit of footwork goes a long way. Lizzie then summoned the beans to lead Duo Cracks, a well protected (especially when Lizzie was placing the gear!) pair of slabby cracks (surprisingly).

I've decided that trying to lead an HVS every time I go out would be good for my soul, so I nipped up a pleasant little bold slab for the tick this time. Then rounded the day off with Typhoon, a ticklist VS that I hadn't done before. At Stanage. What a treat. It was quite good too. All in all a rather lovely day.

On Saturday I got up early(ish) and Jaime picked me up and we headed for Tremadog, where Marq, J-Ro and friends were spending the weekend. We arrived at lunchtime and quickly nipped up The Brothers, before hacking up to Pant Ifan for a speedy ascent of Borchgrevinck/Poor Man's Peuterey. The sun came out in the evening, so I felt compelled to keep my HVS challenge up, and manned up to the unknown challenge of Holloway. After running the first two pitches together to a superbly positioned belay on top of a pinnacle, the top pitch set off through a menacing looking bulge. This turned out to be the crux, with a lightly desperate lurch for a mercifully good jam required to ensure success. After this the angle eased off and there was time to enjoy the rather exposed traverse to the belay tree. We abseiled off and reached the bottom just as darkness fell. Good timing.

Sunday dawned bright and sunny, but Jaime was feeling a bit under the weather, so J-Ro and I climbed Grotto Direct, a reasonably soft HVS with some bold climbing (on a section which was in common with the non-direct VS version). Then, inspired by Marq's heroics on it, I manned up and finally got on The Plum. I've been wanting to climb it ever since, 4 years ago, I stepped onto the top arete on the Micah Eliminate and looked down the line. The new guide advises avoiding the famously desperate starting crack, and who am I to argue with the guide, so I dutifully avoided it. Having got established on the arete the route didn't disappoint, with loads of brilliant, varied climbing, excellent moves, and supreme positions. A proper 3 star classic.


On The Plum

After this Jaime had woken up a bit, so we yomped up Oberon via the original (rather polished) start at 4c, before Jaime fancied a crack at the initial layback crack of Belshazzar. She made the first 2/3 of the pitch look easy, but then psyched herself out at the overhang and backed off. It succumbed to my sexy wide-bridging assault, and I managed to run the second pitch up the rib (avoiding the random traverse of the original line), just reaching the top with one metre of rope to spare. Whoop.

We retired to Ynys Ettws after enjoying a pizza from the magic pizza shop in Llanberis and plotted some adventures for Monday. The forecast was good, with only a small risk of "Isolated pockets of drizzle to the North of Snowdon", we decided to head to the Moelwyns. When we got there, it was raining. So we went to Moel y Gest, where it was raining, and then Tremadog, where it was dry for a few minutes, but then started raining again. Harrumph. The forecast for Tuesday was horrendous, so we decided to bail and head back to Sheffield. Stupid bloody Welsh weather...


There was a crag out there somewhere

Sunshine At Stanage

It's summer. Or at least it appears to be. So I've been mostly celebrating the unseasonably ace weather by venturing to the far flung and rarely dry delights of, erm, the popular end of Stanage. And why not? Saturday afternoon and Monday evening both provided windows of opportunity, and climbing was done in the sun. Whoop.



Continuing the theme of leading classic VSs I've only seconded in the distant past, I did Hargreaves' Original today. It was suitably classic. I also righted a wrong by leading Green Crack, which I'd had a half-hearted look at last year. It was a delightful elegant thrutch. Marvellous.

Otherwise it's been obscure VSs - Ugly Mugs was worth it for one particularly spectacular jug in a superb position and The Z Crack was hilarious nonsense, and an encouraging smattering of HVSs. I'm normally a bit afraid of grit HVSs in case they're secretly The Sloth, but it seems that there are a few friendly ones knocking around. Now if only natural grit E1s could be this friendly...


Adam getting properly stuck into The Z Crack