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.
