Easy routes

As the title says, I've been catching up on some hiking and easy classics the last few months. My favourite was Bracket and Slab on Gimmer Crag. Here's a photo.

Amazing climbing in the Lakes

Well, the best venue in England and Wales for rock action lived up to its billing again. I went for 5 days, Phil was with us for the 1st 3 and we were joined by Paul for the last 3 (don't worry, I can count, we were all 3 together on the middle day.

Day 1 Phil and I went to Black Crag on Pike o Blisco, Id not been before and we did 10 nice lines to HVS.
Day 2, we felt like something a little larger so opted for White Gill in Langdale. This was a crag I'd wanted to visit for ages, especially to do the classic Slip Knot. I'd heard the first pitch was amazing so I kindly offered Phil the second, crux pitch in order to lead the amazing wall pitch, which was as lovely to climb as I had heard. This was Phil's 1st VS lead, a good one I thought. We also did Inferno, which had some really cool back and foot moves through the overlap on pitch 2. Go do it people! On the left is the amazing wall pitch, with another chap on it.

Day 3, we all went to the Castle Rock of Triermain to do the classic Zig Zag. Phil led the first crux pitch and sketched wildly up it, nearly falling from a point where he would have decked. He did the crux moves in fine style smearing blood everywhere as per usual. I lowered off after this pitch as my arm was playing up. Later we did some excellent 1 pitch routes on the South Crag.

Day 4 was amazing, we visited Grey Crag in Buttermere and did 4 excellent climbs, Paul got to lead Dexter Wall, which felt hard enough on the second, good alpine training anyway as we finished with a pleasant walk along the ridge to Scarth Gap.

Day 5 we tried new routing on Harrison Stickle after promising each other a short walk in! Glory hunting and ambition got the better of our sore legs. After a pitch and a half our 'new line' degenerated into scrambling so we contented ourselves with the classic and unfrequented Harristikorner/Spillikin Ridge above the Dungeon ravine. Nice!

And with that, my arm is tired! Hopefully better for Almscliffe on Sunday.

Lots of good climbing!

That's right, lots of good climbing has been achieved in the last few weeks culminating in a lead of a short E1 at Bell Hagg, the Brig. Here's a picture. I've just done the crux at the start. These routes are about 9m high and are traditionally soloed but some of them are worth a lead. No doubt all the old school climbers from the 70s are shaking their heads in disbelief, but I had a fun time. Ad then led Hyde's Mantleshelf, a pleasant route at the end of the cliff.

The top picture shows the hairy one on Cardinal's slab and the bottom one shows me on Cardinal's Crack.

Sandstone Rocks!

Everyone knows Southern Sandstone is the finest rock known to man. Unfortunately I am often compelled to climb on inferior media such as Gritstone, Rhyolite or ice.

Last week we went to Yarncliffe Quarry and enjoyed some of the mid grade gritstone and sand slab routes. Cardinal's crack was especially enjoyable as the hairy one hates fist jamming, especially when it is wet and damp, even though he was seconding on a very tight rope. His Royal Hairiness made up for this with a couple of good leads on Latecomer and Cardinal's slab.

I must also admit to appplying Southern Sandstone ethics to the bold Ant's Arete, largely due to needing rescuing from a lead attempt.