My first winter route of the season...

...and I'm still in two minds about it. 

With good weather (winter weather that is) on the cards I plotted and schemed with Simon Holloway to get up to Mam Tor in the peak district for a spot of winter climbing. I've done Mam Tor Gully under summer conditions in this past year and I've been looking forward to a chance to tackle it under snow. In summer it's forms a pretty interesting rock-climb/ scramble/ tottering death trap. If you ever go there I recommend you either solo the entire thing, or take some pegs and a hammer if you want to increase your safety margin.

With Mam Tor Gully being my big worry for the day I set of at about 5am to meet Simon. Getting stuck behind various bit of traffic along the way I planned to make my time up shooting along the buxton road, confident it would be quiet however this was clearly to no avail. There was snow falling heavily and small drifts across the road wherever there was a gap in the wall. It was the kind of conditions when using use highbeams just casues more problems. I text Simon to tell him I was going to be late. 

I did get there with minimal problems, mainly just sliding the car around a bit and then almost not making it up one hill. On my drive though I only saw one car that had slid completely off the road (ironically through the chevron sign on the outside of the bend). It seemed like just getting there was a problem in itself. However I did arrive and safely only to call Simon and find out he was at the wrong car park. I wasn't going to move my car down winnats pass, so I told him to come to me. In the mean time I moved into the back of my car to kit up and more importantly brew up with my jetboil in the boot. 

The walk-in was pretty easy, it was always going to be. Mam Tor is literally right next to the road but as we walked in the ground underfoot wasn't really frozen. I decided not to worry about it and carried on plodding. We gear up near the centre of the face (if you can call it that) as I've already done the actual gully in summer conditions I wanted to try something a little harder. We went for what I think is gully 3 but I'm not sure. Either way I set off up the short buttress at the base of the cliff to try and reach a decent belay. 


Lets just say that the belay wasn't decent. I ended up hammering a mixed hook into some shale and then tying into it with a figure of nine in the hope it would tighten if any load came onto it. I should have used a screamer but that idea never crossed my mind. I guess it just goes to show that you should practise, practise, practise to train you mind up to use all the gear you have. I told Simon not to fall off and as we're both still here, he didn't. Instead of pushing a line up the wall ahead of us, the lack of a decent belay had frightened me and scooted off left in an effort to get us back onto the original gully line. 


This pitch was reasonably cool as it was nothing more than a walk along a very steep slope, but I did manage to get some gear in. I'm not ethically adverse to placing pegs, on the condition that they are a last resort, you've nothing else that'll fit and it'll increase the safety margin to an acceptable level. All in all placing pegs damages the rock, but then againall climbing and mountaineering leave some damage, whether it's from worn gear placements, worn out descent gullies or abseil tat left behind, it all adds up. So I placed the peg, actaully placed two stacked together then tied them off. I felt a little better afterwards.


We continued climbing. It seems silly me giving a pitch by pitch account as there are few "pitches" in winter climbing, just lenghts of rope till you find a decent place to belay. It's a skill I'm still learning. Whether to bypass a decent belay and try and run it out another 10 metres only to find nothing. Sadly I find myself selfishly doing pitches of different lenght, just so I get the crux. It shouldn't have mattered as I was leading everything on this day. 

The final rope lenght I climbed was up the last bit of gully, where the "real" climbing began. There was poor gear here and there and I avoided the final head wall. When I climbed it in summer I avoided it, as there was a couple of fridge sized blocks dangling above me and my partner was in the firing line. This time they were not there. It gave me food for thought as I branched out left, trying to force a line up the turf and bad rock. Finally there was some decent snow for me to plunge my axes into and I could move quickly up the top. I ended up doing a waist belay whilst wedged behind a snow drift. Spindrift poured over me as it was whipped off the plateaux and I got soaked.

Waist belaying is a long and odd experience. I've never had to hold a fall on a waist belay (as yet) so I find myself constantly questioning what the experience would be like. Given that I was getting soaked by spindrift I had a lot of time to think about it. Simon didn't fall off and we topped out to go and shake cold bare hands of the summit, barely 600m above sea level but encrusted with snow like the Cairngorm plateaux normally is. 

It's not bad for one of the peak districts true winter adventures.

brewing up in the boot of the car before hand

Simon, sporting a new hat

Mam Tor. The gully takes the gully on the left and satys left as much as possible.

My first piece of gear, and belay. I told Simon not to fall off.

Simon topping out on the final pitch.

And walking to the summit

waiting for winter...

This time last year I'd actually got a few routes in before one of my yearly trips to scotland. I have to say that I'm still pretty psyched to get out enough if I've spent most of the winter season so far climbing the frozen waterfalls of my mind. I'm getting a little frustrated. 

I've cleaned all my winter climbing gear. The other day I got my crampons out to give them a service, inspection and a sharpen. They really needed it after last winter too. My Super12's sadly are showing some pretty bad signs of wear & tear. I did buy them off the UKC forums for £25 posted about 4 years ago, so I can't say they've 1 had a bad life and 2 or that I'm disspointed in them. They've seen me up various different routes from all kinds of different grades. I like them because they're light and simple, great for throwing my my pack when I don't expect to encounter any hard or mixed conditions. It seems like they'll be retired for a few weeks now until I can effect a repair that'll work. In the mean time it looks like I'm be bumbling around on my G14's, which despite being really heavy are pretty bombproof. Thing is I've got them set up on monopoints and I can't a arsed to faff around changing them. 

I also packed up my pack for a couple of days winter overnighting this year. The plan for this years scotland trip is to bumble up to scotland, and they travel from pub/climbing area and have a bit of a road trip/chasing the decent conditions out of the back of my car. With 9 days to play with and only 2 of those actually with a definite roof over our heads it'll be an interesting trip to say the least. I think I planning on packing something like 3 sleeping bags with me.

But I packed up an overnight bag with full winter rack, tent, stove and sleeps stuff (you know all the crap you need) into one bag just to see how much it would weigh. After carrying it around the house for 5 minutes I came to the conclusion that it needs to be lighter, much lighter. So I'm going through each item and seeing trying to work out if I'll need it or if there is a lighter option. Gear is something I can get really hung-up on and I find this to be really sad as it takes away from climbing and mountaineering for me. I know this is almost a social faux pas in alot of climbign circles, where what gear you seem to be using is as important as what you're actually climbing (I know quite a few climbers who seem to operate the other way round on this point). All the b/s surrounding gear in general seems to increase tenfold in reference to winter gear!.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter that I've not got the lightest, most ergonomically designed axes, or the lightest crampon/boot combination. I simply can't afford to pay for the lightest climing gear out there. I prefere something that'll last more than one season (especially when the price tag is so normally large) opting for indestructable gear, which has easily replacable and repairable parts rather than something that super fast and light... and gets destroyed after an impromptu sack haul. 

So below there is a photo I took out of Alpine Climbing: Techniques to take you higher. I'm probably breaching copyright by it's too good not to share. I think what I'm trying to get at is that climbing should be about the climbing an experience, not what gear you've got.

Wet weather in wales...

I had a bit of a wet weekend in wales but considering all the rain, I managed to stay pretty dry. Of course bad weather meant that we ended up at Tremadog climbing at Bwlch y Moch. I was climbing with Simon Holloway (who is a regular poster here). The original plan was to try and get some winter climbing in, but like I said the weather conspired against us and was wet, no frozen.

We did get a bit of climbing done considering our late arrival to Eric's Cafe. After wandering along the bottom of the crag trying to find something that resembled a dry route. We climbed One Step in the Clouds (VS 4c) with Simon leading both the first and last pitch. I have to say it was an impressive lead as this was his third VS lead to date and first multipitch route. The bottom pitch, which although is a bit rambling, was pretty damp which made some of the moves really hard. Simon coped fine with it. Pitch 2 I realised as I was on it, is pretty easy to loose sight of where you're going. I guess thats why it gets the VS grade because you can't exactly shout down to your belayer to tell you where to go.

When I got to the belay and placed my two wires I relived the feeling of clipping into that belay from back when I'd done Vector and Weever and the intense sense of satifaction I got from doing those routes. I sat there belaying Simon up, gradually rolling down my sleeve, then putting up my hood and eventually zipping everything up in an attempt to stay a little warmer. It was truely a beautifel spot to belay in though. 

Dispite the fact we where using my 60metre ropes and I could have linkned both pitches together to make our progress a little quicker but we were in no rush. I knew that Simon would enjoy the final pitch too and I think he did. We topped out happily and abseiled back down from the Grim Wall abseil point. 

Dispite our slow approach to climbing that day, we decided to have a crack at another route. The route we picked was a bit of a Tremadog trade route. It was Christmas Curry (severe) of course. It was getting dark while we started off but that didn't bother us as we'd both added our headtorches. What did bother us was the soaking wet layback crack on pitch 2. Simon had lead it and he gave it a bloody good go but it was getting darker and darker until we decided to bin it. I don't think that Simon really wanted to go night climbing and I was getting cold. However we turned it into a postive because it gave me a chance to run through how to back off a route with Simon, which I've found over the years is a pretty useful skill.

As it was dark we bugged out to the car and sat in the cold cooking up some pasta for tea (with red pesto of course) before heading to Plas y Brenin in the hope that they we're running a free lecture on something climbing related. When we found out it was on river canoing in the borneo jungle we opted to finish our beer and headed for the car to take us to our bed for the night, under the boulders. I'm not going to lie but I was pretty cold. My sleeping bag system of teaming a light downbag with a lighter synthetic bag over the top just wasn't really working. I even added my bivi bag over the top to try and squeeze a few more degrees out of it. I even went as far as adding a hot water bottle!

None of this really helped but then again I was stubbornly refusing to don thermals or my belay jacket as I figured that would be admitting defeat. At least I still have this option left in the future. Now all that is needed is for me to finish building my footprint for my tent so that the ground sheet will stay a little more waterproof!

Esoterica: High Tor Gully

It doesn't seem like I've blogged anything in ages. It seems like I spend a lot of my time dream about being out in the ice and snow. I think it's amazing that coating of frozen water in it's various forms can cause such a stir of emotions in a person. I can't wait till I manage to get out there. I'll enjoy everything, from the early wake-ups and long walk-ins to the first hot aches of the season. 

Climbing this weekend just gone was as close to winter climbing as I've ever come when I'm supposed to be on a traditional rock climbing route. I actually had a day off on saturday. I spent the day fitting a radiator with my Dad which was an interesting experience. We ended up shutting the water off twice, wrapping a kilometre of PTFE tape around various screw threads and visiting 2 separate plumbing stores. It was a pretty good day considering that I'd only gone over to use the tumble dryer to reproof my waterproofs

So with a day of tinkering with gear, reproofing and getting generally grubby out of the way, Rachel and I woke up early on the sunday morning, jumped in the car and nipped into the east peak to tick off another esoterica route... high tor gully. I've only climbed at high tor once before with Dan Masterman (who's disappeared to the other side of the world now in NZ). Now last time I was here I didn't really explore any of the caves and came a cropper on a HVS 5b because I stupidly didn't take enough runners with me. A lesson that has stayed with me I think. Well this time was different, we did manged to explore some caves (albight briefly) and I didn't fall off anything.

Like normal we packed tow small sacks as we'd be climbing with them. I had a new toy to play with in the form of a dirty great big headtorch (Petzl Duo mit 14 LEDs). I found it cheap on UKC and have been after one for ages. MY old TIKKA-XP is starting to get very old and battered but it's still running pretty well. It is still a great torch but being scared of the dark make you appreciate light providing devices and more power = more light which make me feel alot better when venturing under ground. We took a my thick old single rope in the end, based on the fact that so far the esoterica routes have been a little cruel to rope and Rachel wanted her rope to last a little longer than one crazy route. 

The walk-in to high tor is pretty much the same as the guidebook description but the obvious path isn't so obvious anymore. What makes up for it is a BMC sign that I figured would only have been placed there in the event of climbers actually using the path. It is a long a winding path taking you right round to the front of high tor and passing a load of awesome little buttresses along the way. I've never really given peak limestone the time of day (actually I've never given any limestone the time of day) but when I was confronted with these massive white walls I felt the need go and climb them. Too bad I only packed half a rack and no climbing shoes. I'll have to go back! 

Instead we wandered along the path and stopped off to have a brief look into the small cave systems that are there. I wanted a chance to try my new headtorch out and see what lighting effects I could get with it for some photography inside the cave. I never actually got the chance as about 6 metres in while me and Rach were sitting around gazing at the cave I spotted a cave spider behind her. Now I'm not scared of spiders, in a general sense but these things are much bigger than I'm used to. (A couple of interesting links to information on them are here & here). Rachel however is very much in the "I dislike spiders to the point that I'll run out of the cave and leave Matt behind" camp. I did try and carefully point out that there was a cavespider behind her, and that it wasn't doing anything other than just sitting there but I think you can imagine what happened. Now left standing alone in said cave, regardless of my massive headtorch, I bolted for the exit. 

We continued around on the path in daylight, enjoying the light flitting through the trees. I really was a proper cold wintry morning, I think all it needed to top it off was frozen ground. I had left the guidebook behind in the car because it's heavy and I figured that a VD gully shouldn't be too hard to find because it split the Main Head wall and Left face of high tor. I was wrong on that point. High Tor Gully does indeed split the main wall and left flank of high tor and it presents itself as a deep cleft. High Tor Gully is actually about 6 metres above this massive cleft that sinks some 20 metres underground. I really did take us a while at actually notice the gully which was sort of hanging above us. 


After a lot of uming & ahhhing we decided that we may as well go for it. The start looked pretty hard and we didn't have a rock shoes or anything. I lead the first pitch and managed to sting my crotch on a rogue stinging nettle. There really wasn't much gear in the gully either but that didn't stop me and I carefully climbed on up trying to not to dislodge any of the loose material. At the first decent opportunity to build a belay I did because I knew Rach was worried about the first bit of climbing. As it happened Rachel was fine and joined me at the belay for a brief respite before she led off up the next section.


It looked pretty easy but it soon became apparent that it wasn't. The entire gully was just loose and Rach quite sensibly down climbed and sent me up to deal with it. I climbed as carefully as I could because it was just so loose. At one point I had one foot on the left wall, both hands on the right wall and was propping myself up with my final foot trying not to knock off any loose material. I soon managed to gain the safety of some trees growing in the gully and the difficulties were over (for now). Rach joined me at my tree belay and we set about working how the hell we were going to get out of the gully. I think the original exit is now used as a sort of rubbish dump by the local area management group. We didn't really fancy climbing through rubbish to try and get out, and even this exit looks pretty sketchy. Instead we managed to find a little crack that led up the right hand wall. It was actually the hardest bit of climbing (and probably one of the only bits of actual "climbing" we did all day). We were soon sat on the top checking out the awesome view down on Matlock and Matlock-Bath. Not bad for a single route at High Tor.

Offsets and tri-cams...

I wrote a post a while back about DMM alloy offset nuts and whether or not I was missing out. In the weeks since I've borrowed my partners set of 5 offsets and made a real effort to look for placements and place them. For the short period they stayed on my rack (before they had to be returned) I tried to turn to them first and found myself using them all up on most of the pitches of mountain rock I climbed.

I figured that I better report back as to my conclusions at this moment in time. Before I had a set of offset nuts, I never really found myself wanting and needing to place them. I know there are some devout (some would consider almost zealous) followers of offset nut's who'll tell you that you need them on your rack and that for every parallel sided placement there'll be an million offset placements but thats simply not true. I will accept that there are tonnes of offset placements out there, but (and this is the crucial point) if you don't carry offset nuts (or normally carry them) , or are used to parrellel sided nuts you and you're good climber who is used to using thier own rack, you'll simply bypass offset placements in favour of one that you're rack will fit.

Now this would seem obvious. If you don't use a piece of gear, then how are you supposed to get (or at least understand) the benefits that piece can bring. When I returned said offsets I did for a while keep looking for offset placements and then had to bypass them in favour of one that my rack would fit so there hasn't really been a loss in this experiment. But there has been one significant gain, a change in my opinion.

About 4 years ago I read about tri-cams for winter climbing. I then aquired a set and took them out during my first season. Needless to say I was unimpressed. I found them fiddly and awkward to place and they never turned out to be my first choice piece of gear. I've got a couple more winter seasons under my belt now, and I find myself missing out on the cam placements I bypass in winter alot. Coming into winter from a rock climbing back ground means that I do really miss out when I'm carrying a smaller rack. I'm just used to so much more gear. Carrying cams is something I really miss out on in winter, but I just can't justify the weight of them and time needed to place them.

There is of course an obvious solution. Actually there are several obvious solutions, the first being to stop whining. There were people climbing the routes I've done with nowt but a single alpenstock and homemade crampons, so what am I complaining for. The other solution is to find a camming device that is light weight and supposedly better in iced up cracks... tri-cams.

So I've been carrying them on my rack for the past few weeks doing the esotertic routes with Rachel and took them with us this weekend to wales. It takes a real effort to force myself to actually place them because I'm just so unused to using them but I can say that they've been a astounding success so far. I've been using them both passively and cammed in an effort to sort of intergrate them into my rack and I hope they'll get alot more use this winter too.

Peak District Alpine experience...really?

Britain has a host of fantastic climbing from sea cliffs to mountain routes, to gritstone in the Peak district to unique places like the Slate quarries in wales and the lakes. Scottish winter climbing is world renowned and hopefully the winter scene will pick up in wales and the lakes too. But sadly, as a few of my french friends seems to (always) want to point out, in the grand scheme of things we don't have proper mountains.

Well sod you, we have better ethics.

Having finished my small rant about why Britain is the best place for climbing in the world I'll proceed to further my point. My and Rach managed a route of alpine grander in the peak district, and there's another one to do just up the road!

Elbow Ridge probably isn't the most well known of Britains epic ridge routes, but then again the Peak district isn't exactly the home of alpine climbing. The route discription is hidden away inside "On Peak Rock" in the Esoterica section, something that I can only assume more normal people would by-pass. Sadly the Esoterica section contains many classic routes, that if they were say in North Wales, they just be part and parcel of the climbing there. Mam Tor gully is as loose as anything on the Lleyn Penisular, Elbow ridge and Matter Horn Ridge and as thin as Crib Goch (but with less of a walk in). The Raven Stones stomach traverse is probably about as much fun and trampling through the bushes mid summer to finds the base of a route at Tremadog and Chocolate Blamange gully is clearly as dangerous and as fun as climbing over the wet slate scree slopes of the lower oil drum glacier (though probably less life threatening). On Sunday Rachel and I roped up in the best alpine style we could and headed off to tackle Elbow Ridge...

The original plan was to do both ridges, but this would have required 2 things. More time is the first and better weather being the second. Actually I would rather have just has more time. The weather was pretty cool and turned what would have been a complete walk in dry summer conditions into a proper interesting and fun experience. The fog was so thick that after 30 metres of rope I couldn't actually see Rach, which was alright because I had not brought any think more than a 30 metre rope. The wind was also blowing across the ridge so it turned sections that could normally easily walked across into something that it was potentially easy to get blown off.

Our plan was to get up early to do the ridges then get to Northfield to get tattoos done in support of prostate cancer as part of Movember. We didn't exactly get up as early as we'd planned but when has that ever stopped someone from getting out and going climbing. It would just mean we'd have to be a little quicker instead, so we adopted an approach that any aspiring British student alpinist would be proud of and any french alpinist would probably sneer at and packed a small rack (read: medium sized rack) harnesses, helmets and a bottle of water and set off into the peak.

Now I don't really know how to describe the route other than it was awesome. There was a semi-hanging belay, some waist belaying, heavy use of tri-cams, moving together, slipping on wet grass, loose rock, cold hands and finally some epic topping out only to almost slip and fall off. The best part is probably that we filmed it all so I'll try and put a video up asap.

Roaches Saturday, Castle Naze Sunday

I think we all know how I feel about the Roaches. It isn't that I can't see their appeal (fantastic slab climbing, excellent overhangs, good face routes, bouldering, multipitching and good grade range) but you can have a little too much of that appeal. In this instance I got suckered in by a partners promise of getting a load of routes done in one day. This went from him being "psyched to climb" on the thursday, to "psyched to socialise" on the friday. Eventually I got 1 route done with him on the saturday. It can't hold him responsible for my lack of climbing as the weather was pretty damp anyway. All the rock seemed to be covered in a fantastic green slime that seems to absorb water like a sponge. Cool to look at but with the frictional properties of a wet fish.


I did get some climbing done though, which is more than some people might have managed so I shouldn't really complain. I picked a HVS 5a called Diamond Wednesday as it was the driest route on the upper tier, and one I've not done before. It started with a little obstacle to negotiate, namely a holly bush before breaking up a head wall with a series of high rockovers. All in all it was a good route, only let down by the really easy finish (which is a bit of a jug fest to be honest). Then came the bumbling around and socialising. This lasted long enough for it to get slightly warmer and allow me time to catch up with a few people I've not seen in a while. I saw Stu who managed to damage his back in a little bit (here). It was nice to catch up with him and see how he's recovering from injury. It looks like it'll be a few months before he's back out climbing again, but that hasn't stopped him being really psyched.


It took a while but I tracked down someone willing to belay me for another route and off me and Tim Nixon set to find something that was dry. The route we picked was Humdinger (E1 5b). It's been soemthing I've actually looked at every time I've been up the Roaches for the past few months. It tackle a pretty big overhang, pretty much head on, pulling straight through the a jug on the lip. I think that maybe the hardest actual move was getting off the deck and maintaining dry shoes. From here it was an odd little slab climb up to some good gear in a bad flake before a host of more good gear in loose/hollow sounding flakes. I got something in more decent below the actual roof which cheered me up. Then it started, the long and slow process of making head way up the wall (and conversly pushing the boundries of what could be considered an onsight attempt). I placed my gear and then made a few moves up the wall, took a good look around then retreated to my good rest spot (note: not weighting the gear, but down climbing the whole while). Then I was back up, placing some more gear & down climbing. Eventually I made it to the lip and had a crack at the crux move. It is literally a single really hard long reach from a bomber jug. I'd got good gear in below me (an DMM dragon cam Edd had kindly lent me) but I didn't make it first time. Instead I pulled back at the last moment and down climbed again. My ethical autism dictates that I can't weight the gear, lest I have to pull the ropes and try it ground up so instead I'll reverse the moves. This does make my climbing very stop start when I'm on hard routes as I don't have a "let go for it" attitude.


To cut a long story (of up climbing &down climbing) short, I made the move after about 4 attempts. I then found myself in a odd position, feeling like I was space walking while being pumped out. I pulled up onto the next ledge to be confronted with the bones and rotten meat smell of the old peregrin nest, I quickly moved off from here. The climbing above was probably still about 5a so I was trying pretty hard not to blow it. Of course I made it to the top and belayed up Edd and Tim as the sun was setting. It had been worth waiting till this time of day to do with route.


As this was the last route of the day I bugged out and met Rachel from work. We then decided to spend bonfire evening playing with sparklers and wathcing the fireworks over the city of B'ham from the hillside near Frankly Beeches. Here are some pictures we took:

Castle Naze sunday started off like a train wreck. I hightailed it up to Stoke in the morning to Tim's house to find not Tim but a living full of hungover bodies. I did the only thing I could... put the kettle on and made everyone some tea. This magically got Edd moving and within the hour the house and garden had been cleaned up from the wreckage of the party the night before. The weather today was much better to say the least, it was cold and dry with some weak winter sunshine to brighten the mood. Castle Naze looke awesome when we pulled up as the sun was just slowly moving round. Some of the rocks were still in darkness.

I kicked started the day with a VS 4c called Nozag, which is probably one of the longets routes at castle naze. It's a pretty cool route and I'm glad I did it with Tim. The start is like a traditional VS grit route, jamming but then it lend itself to some pretty cool face climbing. I bet if you where a VS leader then the final top section might put the willies up you. I then moved off with a route called Morroc'n'Roll (E1 5b) down in the quarred area to the far right of the crag. I like this area a little more than the more solid rock above. It's a little crumbly and loose and there is a whole "aire of collapse" about the place. Most of these routes start off with a hard move to avoid a large section of really chossy grit just ablve the base of the cliff. It make the routes feel a little more serious right from the word go. Either way I tottered up this route feeling off balance the whole time but manage to get it sorted without any problems. I then continued up a beautifel arete that sort of punches out of the rubble at the top of the crag to belay off a stake and a bad nut. I'll belay lower next time round I guess.

My final lead for the day (though not my final climb) was a route called Stoke the Engine (E1 5b). This is a route I did with Edd belaying me. It was right round on the far right of the quarried face. It was originally a choice between two different E1 5b routes but I settled on Stoke... because it had less gear but was slabby, and therefore would be a little easier (based on my preference for slab routes). So I started up the first bit and had a hard move before I managed to gain the hanging slab. Here I was already a little run out from my gear and it reminded me alot of Brown's Eliminate at Froggat. I managed tog et a tiny size 2 Peenut into a crack but it didn't really fill me with much confidence. Then after chalking up excessively I actually commited to the move and made it. It was literally a big of a single move wonder but the seriousness of the route made it worth while. Sadly belaying was a little awkward as there seems to be so much loose rock in the wall above.

At this point I sort of ran out of partners, or at least people willing belay me. Atfer about 30 minutes of sitting round enjoying the sunshine I realised I should make the most of my day out. With no real bouldering to play on I started soloing routes on the main face that looked pretty easy. I did't solo anything over 5a but I also stayed away from the really easy stuff. In the end I managed to solo about 6 routes on the cliff, quietly without causing a fuss and without getting in anyone way. It was a pretty liberating experience as I only had my chalkbag, my shoes and a rag to clean my feet off. My little route list consisited of:

Muscle Crack Vs 4c
The Fifth Horseman HVS 5a
Niche Arete VS 4c
Scoop Direct VS 4c
Zigzag Crack VS 4c
Flake Crack HS 4a

Wet days in Wales...

(This probably summed up our trip. You have got the love the expression on his face)

I went to Wales with Soames and well... it rained. To say that this was annoying was beside the point. It was very annoying. It wasn't like we didn't try. We spent the Wednesday chasing any chance of good weather all over north wales. We started off at the Lleyn Peninsular, intending to go new routing in the Quarries but the weather came in hard there. We actually had driving hail at one point and this stopped any thoughts of new routing as the slabs and micro-granite get pretty slippy when wet. We then tried out luck heading over to Gogarth but this proved to be a pointless activity. Well almost pointless because it looked dry over the Slate Quarries so we headed straight there. Arriving at the slate we first went to look at Opening Gambit (MXS) which is a route that I've been looking for a partner for since I can remember. The route has changed in line a couple of times since it's original FA, mainly because of some very larger rockfalls which have affected several routes in the area. The rockfalls have left a lasting impression in the form of several isolated tottering scree slopes on the ledges that you need to climb onto or across. We took a really good look at it and came to the conclusion that Soames has got children (and therefore some responsibility) and that I didn't want to die. I guess this'll have to wait a little while or until I find a partner with less sense. 

We then took a look at the never never land slab, with a view to me completing Khubla Khan but alas it had a big wet streak running down it. In the end another plan was hatched. This one involved squirming through the blocked up entrance that leads to the "tunnel of love". It is literally pitch black down there as the slate seems to absorb all the light but from there it leads to the bottom of Australia. We then walked and scrambled across the tottering piles of scree to the Rognon, situated in the middle of the lower oil drum glacier (you've simply got to love the names they give things in the slate quarries). He we set about actually doing some climbing, but low and behold as soon as we'd roped up, the weather broke. We forced ourselves into a tiny little cave in the scree that we christened "the Captain Oats Cave" after a comment from Soames ("I'm just going outside for the lemon vodka, I might be a while").When the weather relented we managed to make our way up the scree, after trundling off a few large boulders (for fun) to the salt-pans level. This is another bizarre place, like many of the little micro-environments that seem to have developed in the quarries. 


In the summer it dries and looks like a traditional salt pan, but when it rains whatever it is that's spilled all over the floor seems to absorb all the moisture and expand. This then becomes spongy, wet and soft. It's just so bizarre. From here we managed to make it onto the upper oil drum glaciers which then leads onto the other levels, passing some amazingly well rusted old quarry machinery. I really should have stopped to take some more pictures. I did rain on us again as we tried to make our way out of the quarries, but there was plenty of places to shelter in the form of blast shelters and quarrymans huts along the was so me mostly stayed dry. With bad weather looming overnight, we decided that staying at Eric's bunkhouse would be better than camping in a soaking wet nant peris (even though it has a pub). Soames has cooked, like usual, and we feasted on something that had duck, chorizo and vegetables in it. We found the lemon vodka in the end too.

(view from the Captain Oats cave)

With good weather in the morning and a new plan we breakfasted (on what I can only describe as breakfast stew, baked beans with black pudding and precooked sausage mixed in). As the weather on the Lleyn was damp it was straight back to the fastest drying rock in wales. Our plan for the day was to try one of the "grand days out" as described in the new slate guide. We walked in, talking the earliest path off up the scree slopes as this is slightly easier than walking up the inclines and dumped all our kit on the Siding's level. I'd actually got a little pack that me and Rachel found somewhere that would do for carrying up some food, water & the guidebook for the day. This little pack basically soldiered on all day, dispite the fact that it was slowly disintergrating as we gained height. It has opened my eyes to the use of a seriously lightweight pack, just for carrying shoes etc up routes. Previously I've used an alpkit gordan which is a little large but works pretty well. 


We started with Looning the Tube (HVS 5b) which neither of us wanted to really lead (sadly we both think it's a poor route) and it was seeping a little. I led it, uninspired and blasted on up to the top to belay before bringing up Soames. He then selected a nice long F6a+ who's named escapes me for the next pitch. It was quite a nice route, spoilt by a large ledge at one thirds height. I think the high rockovers from the top section more than made up for it. Next up was M.I.L Arete (E1 5b) as I'd rather do a trad climb that I've not done before. This was a pretty nice routes and clearly something I should have done long before I did it and it felt a little easy for the grade. Still there was only 3 pieces of gear in the whole climb (actually there was 4 but I missed one out, cuz I'm 'ard, ennit?). We then puzzled around on the next level looking for a route that caught our inspiration. Zippies First Acid Trip (E1 5c) straight away caught my eye but it was Soames lead and he picked the line of [insert climb name when I find the damn guidebook] at E2 6a. Soames gave it a bloody good go and almost nailed the crux move on his second attempt but the difficulties didn't seem to end for a while so he reversed it all and sent me up Zippies... instead.


This arguably took longer than it would have took Soames to finish his route but I think he might have seen me looking longingly at the lovely left edge of Zippies.I started up this we ease, seeing as it was a hard 5b move to make the ledge at one thirds height. From here it was a series of harder moves to gain the first (any only) bolt before the difficulties really started. I took me ages of going up and down and trying this move and that to make some head way. Eventually I tried a really high step on a hold that I had convinced myself would either a) explode off the face (unlikely) or b) let my foot slide off it, sending me crashing down the wrong side of a sharp and pointy-ish arete. What actually happened was c) nothing, I just made the move albeit a little shakily. This gained some good holds and more importantly some good gear. I happily topped out and stared in horror at the pile of talus that I would need to construct a safe belay out off. Long slings, blocks, some rusted metal work and a braced stance later I yelled I was safe and Soames followed up. 


We were now approaching the deadline. Apparently at 1513 it would rain, according to the weather report we'd seen in the morning. Now not that I normally put that much faith in the weather report but we'd not got any waterproof jackets or anything so we'd be a little exposed if the weather did hit. We this is mind Soames still chose Plastic Soldier (F6a+) as the final route. It was quite fitting as it was 40 metres long (131.233596 feet for those who prefer an antiquated series of measurment). Soames climbed in well considering the reachy difficult climbing and small amount of loose material that was on route. It was about this time that we must have noticed a guy who was attempting to solo a route on the back wall of australia call Big Thursday (XS 5c ABO). For people who don't know XS stands for eXtremely Suicidal (or something of that nature) and the ABO is an alpine grade for something more serious than ED4. Basically this was a big loose and serious route... and this guy was going for it solo. I have to say I was pretty impressed by this attempt but I was also a little worried. By the time Soames had topped out and brought me up the soloer had been stood on the same ledge 2 pitches up for about half an hour. Soames seemed to think something was up as the guy kept whistling and making enough noise to gain our attention. In the end Soames asked if he was alright, the reply we got was "errr... I could do with a rope?"


I'd like to say that we sprung into action like a well trained rescue team and quickly ran over to him, but we didn't. I think that it was commonly accepted that as he'd (rather politely) waited until we finished and had not actually asked for rescue until we called him that the ledge he was standing on was alright and he was in no immediate danger. So instead we counted the levels we needed to climb up and coiled the ropes up properly so we'd have no problems getting to him. Then we walked over and discussed that he's was getting the old "sling round the waist" harness. Needless to say it was pretty serious terrain we encountered getting to him. In the end Soames sat at the top and belayed me down the massive scree slope above where I set up some secondary anchors to get a rope down to him. The whole rescue must have taken less that 30 minutes and he was very grateful.


It turned out he had kids and worked at the beacon climbing wall, and as a way of saying thank you offered us some free climbing if we turned up there tomorrow. Sadly it was our last day but we thanked him none-the-less. He told us that he's had a dream to onsight solo all the XS routes in the quarries. I guess this was less of a dream and more of a nightmare, but it made him happy. We never did get his name though but we did make it down with the rain breaking on us!


What will I take away from this experience? For one thing I'll be getting a decent but lightweight sack for carrying things up routes with me. Doing link ups is a lot of fun because instead of focusing on what routes this sort of gets put on the back burner as completing the overall link up is more important. Another is that it's nice that we rescued that guy. Now I'd like to think that we rescued him for the good of rescuing him, but when it boils down to it I think we rescued him because we hope that if either of us got stuck in the same situation then someone would rescue us. At the end of the day I don't think rescue for the sake of the hopeful future rescue is a bad thing. We did the right thing at the end of the day. Soloing is soloing until it goes wrong, then it just seems to go back to normal climbing whereby you rely on those people are you. 

A cold days gritstone climbing

Considering I've been on half-term you'd have thought I would have been out climbing earlier than this but life has been getting in the way and it's just rained alot too. However I managed to find a partner in the form of Matt Snell (SUMC Chairman) and we set off into the peak! I had originally intended to get an early start and head over to the east peak, just because there is a higher concentration of climbing there than in the west, but as chance would have it Matt pointed out that he'd never climbed at Hen Cloud. Seeing as he's lived in stoke for a couple of years and not climbed here it seems the decision was made. 

Now I like Hen Cloud, for several reasons but that main one is that fact that it seems to be constantly overlooked. You can stand on the cloud some days and look across at the Roaches and see it almost swarming with Ants (obviously they are not ants) and at the same time it'll be lonely and peaceful where you are. Having said that, it does mean that it can get a little green at times. Today was not exception and we saw no cars parked beneath Hen Cloud as we pulled up. 

After suffering the grueling walk in (about 400 metres up hill at 45 degrees, yes I am a pansy) we settle on climbing Central Route Direct (VS 4c). This is a route that I'm ashamed to admit I've tried twice before but I've never really got off the ground (I think it has more to do with my lack of effort than my ability). however this time there was no escaping it. In the bitter cold I started up the first pitch trying the save my precious cams for when I really needed them. The first set of moves was really trying and hard, especially since it was only 4c but I pushed on. The climbing felt really unstable and thought I was off loads. I guess this has more to do with what I've been climbing recently which is slabs and faces rather than thrutchy cracks and offwidths. In the end I topped out, after making a right meal of the first pitch. It was only 8 metres. Snell came up as I snuggled down into my jacket, apparently belaying in the only breeze I could find. Snell then tackled the next pitch, a offwidth crack with polished sides. It was that or a horrible little crimpy pitch. Snell doesn't like chimenys and even a offwidth was not too his taste but he blasted up it to belay on the next ledge above. He commented that we should have set up a tent on this ledge and I don't think he was far wrong. The final pitch was left up the me and it was only 4a but don't let that fool you. It was a right little thrutchy hard pitch with leff me feeling happy to have topped out. It wasn't at all bad for our first climb.

Having descend it was obvious that the next route should be Central Climb (VS 4c), the original line compared to our first route. This time we would alternate the pitches leaving Snell to head off up the first one. It's a nice pitch but the footholds are super polished meaning that it's a little hatrder than it should be. As I seconded it I managed to retrieve a sling that had been dropped in the crack by another party. This did entail a long and complicated proceedure involving a weights 240cm sling and all my nuts, but I managed it! Pitch 2 fell to me and I took this as a chance to go up the flakes that Snell had avoided on last time. They are pretty thin and I didn't feel good at all about putting my weight on them. The gear itself wasn't that great but the climbing was reasonably easy. I'd rather do this sort of climbing than hard climbing with bomber gear! I set up happily for Snell to lead the last pitch. Again Snell is not a fan on chimneys and this seems to extend to anything that has two walls either side of it. The last pitch has such a features so while I seconded up it, back and footing most of the way up, Snell tired to stay outside of the crack as much as possible. It made for interesting climbing to say the least. These is also a pretty big but loose block at the top of this pitch. I don't think it'll fall out, being pinned in by the surrounding geology but it's scary as hell when it moves when you stand on it. 

On our walk down we took a look at the routes and walls on the right hand section of Hen Cloud. Our intention was to take a look at Great Chimney, but instead we both spotted the line of Hen Cloud Eliminate (HVS 5b). Apart from being a good looking line, it's also mentioned in the guide book as one of Hen Clouds top 3 HVS climbs. It had to be done. I led it, but a few problems on the top section but overall I thought it was a good route. In the beginning it started with ahrd move off the deck, before you gained your first piece of gear, then came a painful hand jamming crack, which I felt me hand were a little too big for but it lead to a half decent rest. The final section I probably climbed completly wrongly. I ended up turning in the groove system above the wrong way round so I ended up in a thurtchy/squirmy exit. It was simply none other than bloody good fun. It's probably worth noting that UKC now grades this route E1, which I think is unfair given that it's incredibly well protected climbing followed by a series of good rests. It's probably also fair to say that Joe Brown (and ilk) wouldn't have had the fine camming devices we've got now when they originally put it up. 

Our last route of the day coudl only really be one route, Great Chimeny (Severe) and what and what made it better was that Snell led the route. He actually led it really well and only managed to freak himself out at the top section when the walls closed in a little. It's probably my favourite climb at the grade in the entire country too. So four routes, two of which were multipitch and a classic HVS too. Not bad for a cold day in the Peak.

anticipation...

So I just checked the weather. It looks like it'll be ok for the next few days which is good because I'm hoping to get out climbing. I think tomorrow is a peak district foray but I'm really looking forward to getting back to wales. The new slate guide is out (though I know it'll be the same old rock) but I've been reading it alot and can't wait to get back out on it. But more importantly we're heading back to our cliff to try for a coupel of new lines. They both (on the photographs) look a little hard, or at least a little more runout than the one we put up previously. Either way here to hoping...

The New Slate Guide... finally!

Long have I been waiting for the new slate guide to come out. Long enough actually for me to appreciate how good my old '92 slate guide is... and it's additional purple folder! Allow me to explain. I'm only a youngster when it comes to slate. To be honest I've only been climbing for the last 9 years or so of my life (climbing has seemed to dominate those years though) but I've been climbing on the slate for something like the last 3, but I've loved it. I actually recently fell out of love with that series of big purple-hued-grey holes in the ground that surround Llanberis because I'd reached bit of a ceiling. It wasn't that I'd climbed all the routes in there that I could climb, but more like I wasn't inspired to climb them. Soames a few months ago came along and changes all that by getting me the crux of Khubla Khan (I got rained off and I've not been back). But my love of that slatey goodess is back.

When the new guide was announced last week, Soames was the first person to tell me about it.I followed the progress of V12 in getting the order and when a chance came to head to wales climbing for the weekend, I jumped at it. My first impressions of the guide after a brief flick through were that I was impressed. It was clear that a lot of work had gone into this book, and judging by it's thickness (compared to the last guide) there would be a host of new routes and topo's in there. But wait a minute, why has it taken so long for the slate guide to be released. I think that there are a few reasons, well two really. There has been considerable development in the past couple of years throughout the quarries. If you've been following the slate wiki then you'll have seen routes going up all over the place. I guess that they've been trying to grade check all of them. The other reason for the held release date, I think, is the access situation. During the filming of "Clash of the Titans" we can all remember the quarries being closed. Also there was a few incidents with Dali's Hole. This eventually calmed down once the fence went up and the low grade sport routes were taken down (I still think this is a good thing). 


Sadly quarry access is something I've been following with a little interest (primarily because I like climbing there and don't fancy the idea of being banned) but seeing as a lot of investment (both financial and time) has gone into this guidebook, it makes more sense to release it when the access situation is good. Seeing as winter is coming and autumn generally has rather poor weather the quarries will take a beating this time of year. With the release of a new guide, how many people do you think will flock there? I just hope that access is sorted.




Things that hit me straight away are the excellent photographs throughout the book, seemingly the same construction (and therefore quality) as the Gogarth North and North Wales Rock guidebooks. The guidebook construction is something I'll tackle later and good pictures don't make a guide. Having said that I was so please when I opened it and started reading. The best place to start is the beginning and the opening sections about what slate it like as a rock type and what gear to carry I thought were very well put (it did recomment skyhooks as fair gear but mainly useful for bailing in the rain). Then each section is well described (like each area of the quarries). The maps are well drawn and seem pretty simple to use (although this might be a little biased as I know my way round the quarries pretty well). I plan on testing this when I go slate climbing with someone who not been there and make them find the route.


What really impressed me was that the main wall of Twll Mawr, Gideon and the Nant Peris quarries (heaven forbid you'd want to climb there!) had decent topos and frank but excellent descriptions. Twll Mawr really does come across as the very dangerous but equally fascinating place to climb and the Gideon Slab actually looks like I'll be able to climbing on it finally (I've never been able to work out where any of the lines go based on the old descriptions). 


The grading seems to be pretty good throughout the quarries. There haven't been that many grade revisions or changes (from sport/trad etc) but the ones that have I've ran over with Soames (who may as well own the quarries as he's climbed there so much) and he agreed with them. Interestingly there's routes in there graded with British Trad, French spot, Drytooling, Aid climbing (mit peggage) and Clean aid climbing. There's still a good few routes as the magically enticing grade of XS and they've still include the obscure alpine grade of ABO for one route. I don't know why but I like this. I really seems to show the broad diversity of climbing in the slate quarries, which is something I like about them and should stay. I think there's enough rock in there that you don't need to retrobolt every route going. The specific style of traditional slate climbing is so important to maintain and (and I'll make a big claim here) so unique to the British climbing scene. 

Next along the line of things I feel the need to comment on is the historical section. If you read anything I've written about guidebooks before then you'll know my stance with regards to the historical sections. They are important. They stop climbing being reduced down to a number and a grade and keep the flow of stories and history behind each route alive. Since the slate quarries are relatively young (with regards to a lot of the mountain crags in North Wales) they're history is 1, quite well recorded and 2, quite brief and 3, a lot of the people around in the original boom are still alive. The guidebook itself doesn't really have a dedicated history section, instead preferring to spread the history out over the book. These come in the form of "Diary of a Slatehead". These little diary style entries look back at how little sections of the quarries were developed and who put up what routes. Coupled with a sort of "Character Profile" of prolific slateheads throughout the book this gives a great overall history of the quarries and an insight into the driving force behind their development.


Wow! that's a lot of writing about one guidebook but I guess you can imagine that I've been waiting along time for this to come out. Slate climbing is something special and I think on the new guidebook they've done a really good job!

Millstone Edge

Went climbing at Millstone Edge in the Peak District on Sunday. My Saturday was spent wondering around Cannock Chase, disturbing wild deer (which I've still not got a decent picture of) climbing trees for elderberries, picking black berries and finding a surprisingly small amount of mushrooms. I was very disappointed with my poor haul of mushrooms (about 4). Rach found loads of fruit so she's made loads more jam (blackberry, elderberry, wild pear and wild apple) which is good!

Sunday as I said was spent at Millstone Edge. I'd planned for an early start based on the fact that I only had one day and wanted to make it a good one. This plan went a little out the window when I picked up Ronnie, who was still in bed and therefore forced me to make a cup of tea. Once that was drunk and Ronnie awakened, we then went to the next pick up point Nat's house to pick up Tim and Andy, who were well both asleep. More tea was consumed and more people arrived and eventually when it started raining we sent off.

It's started raining, you say? You might be wondering why we jetted across the peak if it was raining. Surely it would be better to make more tea and play xbox whilst enjoying the rain as a spectator. This wasn't to be as everyone in my car was psyched to get out and try and go climbing and the other car didn't have much choice but to follow. We did actually stop outside Buxton to make a final decision (based on the information gathered from a borrowed iphone). It said good weather would be there in the afternoon and seeing as we were still in fog with a visibility of around 50 metres I had faith in the met office, we voted (5 for climbing, 1 against) and then carried on.

It like it when life pulls little stunts like this. If it wasn't for Ronnie being in bed, Tim and Andy being in bed, several cups of tea and waiting around for people then we'd have probably either binned going climbing or arrived at millstone to find it encased in cloud. Instead we arrived find it's golden walls bathed in weak autumnal sunshine and the promise of dry, clean rock!

We ended up splitting down into two teams of three for the climbing and I set off up Embankment Route 2, dressed in garish lycra (the less said about that the better). Needless to say the thermal properties of lycra leave something to be desired and hence my change back to my regular climbing trousers. Embankment Route 1 gets VS 4c and I'm not going to lie but I had a really hard time on it. I couldn't seem to get a decent finger lock in at all and my jams felt all off. It was quite nice to be humbled on such a route. Ronnie and Andy Finn (new guy to climbing) seconded it with few problems, Ronnie mainly laybacking the whole route. As we climbed with Tim climbed P1 of Embankment Route 1 (VS 4c in it's own right) with Andy and Scott. There was a definite crux that stumped him for a little while while he lead it. Once we were all on the edge we opted to abseil off a tree (no directly obviously). Once I'd actually abseiled down I realised the error of our actions and made sure that I didn't abseil at all for the rest of the day. There was just no need to abseil and I'm sure it took us longer to all ab off rather than just walk down.

Ronnie took the lead for the next route and headed up Embankment route 1. Considering Ronnie is normally against trad climbing and prefers bouldering he lead the route really well. I think his talents are wasted on bouldering! He made short work of the crux which was great fun to watch. I seconded and the crux was had. It was like a 4c stopper move which was really unbalancy and awkward. Instead of trying to do it nice and technically making all the moves easy, I just grabbed and pulled (shamelessly) upward. Our next route was a little more awkward. Ronnie had spotted the what he thought was the continuation of our route on the wall above and set off to start leading it. The downside to this plan as that we'd not really looked at the guidebook and knew that there was a VS line and an E2 line somewhere up there. He started up the route, got a couple of pieces of gear in and then decided that it looked very hard and sustained for a short section. In the end he downclimbed and offered the lead up to me, which I took. 

I made reasonably good progress up the route placing a lot of gear as I went. I very soon came to the conclusion that this wasn't the VS line at all. At my high point there was a pretty hard move I had to make, running my feet quickly up the wall on smears with a layaway from my hand. This would (hopefully) enable me to reach up and slap for a big large hold (by passing a tiny intermediate crimp on the way). Sadly I was getting hopelessly pumped so instead of committing to the move, I down climbed as steadily as I could and took a rest at the floor as my forearms screamed. I had a little wonder about the ethics of down climbing a route, but not weighting the gear. I mean it's clearly a very different ascent to a pure onsight, but it doesn't break the rules of the onsight does it?

Eventually I couldn't put it off any longer and I dived back on lead climbing to my high point and smashing straight through the crux moves. Like most things the crux wasn't as hard as I'd originally thought and I probably could have done it on my first attempt (before the downclimb). It didn't stop me being as pumped as hell for the final section though. The top-out also left much to be desired. It was loose, like a lot of the tops of routes at Millstone, but this was seriously loose. Ronnie and Andy flashed the route on second, and were both really careful at the top. I did wonder why neither had a helmet on?

Once back at the floor (walking off this time) we checked the guide book and found we actually climbed the second pitch of embankment route 1 an E1 5b pitch. We figured that we'd need a break and some food. I think we both knew what route we would be up for next (Great Portland Street) but it had just reached that point in the afternoon where we'd would chill out and enjoy ourselves. I had a good think about the last route (whether it was far to claim the onsight) and about the rack. I've used Ronnie's Rack for the route and therefore was without my 6 million pieces of gear. I think I might need to put my rack on a diet again. 

Eventually we actually go round to doing some more climbing, as the sun was standing low in the sky. We did Great Portland Street (HVS 5b) and I incorrectly took an gear larger than a size 2 cam. This was a slight mistake on my part ad it meant that the bridging/mantling crux was done with some less than perfect gear but I managed it anyway and carried on right to the top. I was really beautiful climbing as the sun was setting and all the walls glowed with a golden hue. I think this is why I like climbing in autumn so much.