After a week of either good grit weather (cold and dry) or seemingly torrential rain I managed to get out at the weekend for a foray into the Peak district. Considering I spent 3 years living in Stoke I never really explored the Peak to it's full potential as I always seemed to end up at the Roaches, windgather or trying to go to wales. Since I brought the Stanage Guide and the Froggatt to Black Rocks Guide, I've been determined to explore the east peak more, so Saturday morning I got up early with Rachel, dropping in at Stoke to pick up everyones favourite French trad climber (Sid) and headed off to Birchen Edge.
A few of my friends have been to Birchen before and I've heard good things about it but I'd never been myself. We took a winding journey through the Peak driving through the grounds of Chatsworth House which was nice surprise. We also managed to spot a feild of Reindeer and a field of smaller more native looking deer. We parked up at the Robin Hood pub and walking in from thier, walking across the top of the crag instead of along the bottom.
Sid took the sharp end first and lead Trafalgar Wall (S 4b) which had a pretty hard start. Not bad for Sid's 4th trad lead ever. While Rach was taking a few photo's she met a Guy from her last trip to Font there named Chopsticks Phil, and his climbing partner Hannah. Chopsticks Phil is named from the use of Chopsticks that hold his hair up, Hannah was simply named at birth (I guess). From this chance meeting our party grew in size. I then tried a route called Hangover (E1 5b) but messed it up so many times and fell off I gave up in the end. Instead I jumped on Camperdown Crawl (HS 4c) which had a hard start and a very easy finish (reflecting the grade). It was a really treat to get some awesome finger jams in on the start though. They where just big enough for my fingers! 
After watching a guy solo the arete next to me while I was doing Camperdown, me and Chopsticks with his battered looking bouldering pad set about having a crack at it. Phil soloed it first with a tiny crimp round the Arete and a mono pocket low down then I managed it with the arete and a crimpy sidepull on the face. Both yeilded a nice solo seeing as the difficulties only extended to the first 10ft and I had Bulbous Brow (E1 5c) in the bag. Seeing as I'd managed to solo brow I then did the 5b and 5c starts to Camperdown Crawl.
The day was going well so we decided to explore another bit of Birchen Edge, especially after seeing the picture of the corner crack of Nelson's Nemesis in the guide book. We wondered across to the buttress, us through the woods and Phil and Hannah along the top till we heard Phil yodelling to annouce he'd found the crag. Phil and Hannah racked up for a "well endowed" HVD route (which Phil displayed his amazing mountain boot hell hooking ability) and Sid went for Nelson's Nemsis (HS 4b). This was Sid's hardest lead to date. He started off really well and eventually bunged in a good cam. Then he bridged up the corner crack and placed a nice and unshiny torque nut before moving out under the roof.
Then he went for it getting his hands along the traverse and leaving his feet behind. Me and Rach started yelling to take adventage of the little tiny edges for his feet. In the end he retreated from the lip shaking. He yell for me to take and I asked why?, "so I can rest" was the response. I told him I wasn't and that he'd be fine. This time he went for it again, moving quicker with the hands and getting his feet sorted, straight to the edge and getting round the arete where he sighed with relief. In went another piece of gear, clip and he was off again. I watched his shaking legs dissappear from view and soon later I heard "safe". I felt bad for not taking him, but he needed it. In the end I think he appriciated it. I seconded the route and found that the hand traverse was HARD. Coming out from the corner and getting the handhold by the lip was hard, The little holds for your feet where polished as hell and the good hold I thought he was going for was a shite crimp. Bloody marvelous effort from Sid.
I then took Cook's Rib (E1 6a) as much final route of the day. The crux was a escapable and avoidable rockovery move, protected above your head by a good cam. I went up, placed my gear and reversed to the floor, had a good look at the route and then went for it, slapping for a flat edged hold which was a bit crap to be honest. Then I rocked over. It was quite good. Both Rach and Sid seconded the route using the arete to get the 5c tick. I guess climbing was over for the day after that. We walked back through the sunset looking for mushrooms before getting into the Robin Hood's in for a nice Pint of Cockery Hoop. All in all a good day. 
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