Stoney Middleton

I've been wraning after a trip back to Stoney for ages. I managed to get a copy of the old Stoney Guide off a friend for about 3 quid and I've been reading it on and off for months. My first trip to Stoney wasn't bad at all. We managed Froth the most polished VS in England (it even says so in the guide). Then once we were back on the ground Andy declared his hate for peak limestone and we left, heading for some grit. Consequently I've just not beed back and just had to contend with glazing up at the towering walls as I drove past occasinoally.

Saturday, despite the interesting weather report Stuart and I headed up there. He's also been ancious to get to Stoney. As we drove over the weather ranged from horrendous rain to pleasant sunshine in the space of a few minutes, still be carried on optimistically. Arriving at the crag we parked opposite the garage and enjoyed a nice walk in, with me deciding not to look at the guide book and just walk to see how far the crag goes. I was also working on the assumption that most crag guides run from left to right, so starting at the top end of the valley we'd have a pretty good idea of the layout. Instead the guidebook is written right to left because people generally walk up the valley, but we'd started at the wrong end, Doh! 

The entrance!

So we walked back, aiming for a nice VS (right at the other end infact) on the way the weather threatened rain just as we passed the entrance to a little pot hole. We were located beneath Prayer Wheel Wall, above Carl's Walk and the guidebook suggested that "those of a speological bent" could climb down aformentioned hole and come out at the cliff beneath There was only one thing for it! Challenge accepted!

This is where I should point out my, perfectly rational, fear of the dark and small spaces. Still you shouldn't let something like "being scared" stop you and we both dived right in and set off exploring underground. I've always liked the idea of caving, especially the SRT side of it but I've not actually ever done any realy caving, simply because of my fear of the dark. I'm sure really sure what posessed me to climb down a hole in the ground. Underground we followed a low thing passage, just big enough for me to stand for about 20 metre, taking us to complete dark, then low stoop before the cave got bigger. Here there appeared to be a little roof collapse meaning we could go over or under it. We opted for under. Here we came to what I think was the main "chamber" with several branches off from it. All of these seemed to dissappear round corners, getting lower and smaller as they went and simply I was not brave enough to go crawling head first into them. 


Remember the original plan, to get to the cliff beneath us? Well we carried on rooting around before we stumbled on a passage that was blocked by rockfall straight on, but gave access to a hole in the floor. After some deliberation I dropped through and made some space for Stu. We'd opted for the largest of the tunnels to crawl through (this one would have required an on the stomach crawl) but managed to freak outselves out by an odd shadow at the end of the tunnel). We rather quickly exited up into the main chamber.

Long exposure picture from inside the cave

After some more exploring round and trying to take a few decent photographs we decided to ehad back to the open air. Sadly there was one final obsticle... a cave spider. This wasn't exactly the hollywood style monster that blocked our path and neither is there a mighty tale of how we fought it off and crawled out. I think we'd just freaked ourselves out and the spider was the final straw. We ran, scrambled and crawled out as fast as we could. 

Sitting on the flat ground with the world opening up around me once I was out of the cave was an awesome feeling. Sat there, smiling broadly we got talking to to actual cavers (you know, with proper caving suits, helmet and wellingtons) about the little pot (as it's called), the spiders and whether it actually joins up with the bottom cave. Infact it does but requires a few tighter squeezes and I think there was even the mention of a sump to deal with. We've vowed to go back and make the journey through, we might just go armed with more torchlight and overalls next time. 


For the rest of the day it seemed very much like the weather gods didn't really want us to go climbing. Everytime we racked up in the sunshine the wind would blow a little bit harder and we'd end up sitting in a cave watching the rain. We did get on a route eventually, a slightly overhanging and bastard of a route called Medusa. It was HVS 5a in our guidebook, but that still didn't stop me from getting utterly spat off it. In the end neither me or Stu finished the route and had abseil down and clean our line.


It wasn't all a waste though, we did manage to explore another cave and get a climb in, eventually. The cave we explored was actually just off Windy Ledge (optly named). It started out as a nice walk, before a short chimney/scramble. The passage then got smaller (crouching height) and it then branched off. We first explored the left hand passge (because you much always go left) which sadly lead to a dead end. I say dead end but there was evidence of passage collapses and small space that mayeb could have been squeezed through... not that I was going to try! So back up the right hand passage instead. This had a continuous movement of air blowing through it, something which intriged both of us. We'd summised that maybe it opened out at the end or even broke out onto the face at some point giving us an awesome view, hence we ploughed on. The passage got smaller and smaller. Stu was still managing to stay upright but I was reduced to some sort of crawl on one knee. I'll admit I was getting quite scared as I couldn't actually turn around. In the end I freaked out completly and we had to get out of the cave. I'll go back and finish it one day though. 


We did get one climb in at least! We had finally found a brief window in the weather and nipped up a lovely VS 4c called Sin. Infact I was still not feeling climbing on limestone as I headed up but pushed on regardless. It was a really nice groove with some good moves all the way up. As I belayed the wind picked up and I silently urged Stu to climb faster. The weather gods seemed quite anger that we'd managed to actually get on rock (as apposed to in it). Stu topped out as the weather hit and boy did it rain. We coiled up the ropes and ran as fast as we could to the walk off.


The walk off was actually an abseil down a wet chimmey. It would have been alright to downclimb, but seeing as it was getting wet, I opted for an abseil. Abseiling down a tight chimney is hard, especially with rope on my back. Once down we could pack up and walk out in the pouring rain, smiling broadly.
  
So my first REAL trip to Stoney Middleton and what did I think? Well I loved it, not just for the climbing. Climbing on limestone always seems to scare the crap out of me, which is a realy shame because it's actually good climbing alot of the time. The polish is a little bad (ok excessively bad in some places) but so what? just deal with it and move on. The majority of the climbing seems really cool and I'd like to get back there. I liked it because it's got alot of other things to do there. You could have an awesome day just exploring the underground caves and pots, or climbing up to the top and walking along the rim of the cliffs. I think Stoney is underrated and under appriciated in this day and age.

Stu taking on a little stoney bouldering