Bamford Edge

With a decent weather report Andy and I set off to Bamford Edge in the Peak District, despite my concerns about how short it was. We'd both managed to avoid the sentence in the guidebook that read something like "climbing can be impossible here is the cold wind" and it's something we suffered with all day. As my first day's climbing of the year goes it will probably sum up my climbing for the rest of the year. Andy brought not only his crampons but also an ice screw by mistake to the crag and we also managed to run out of gas for my jetboil after only one small cup of tea. Not a good start.

But that almost didn't matter! It was bitterly cold on the walk-in, which is short and sweet thankfully. The ground underfoot made very little sound as it was soft and wet, unless we walked though the small amount of snow that was left behind and all you could hear was a faint crunch. The crag itself was lit up by the winter sun and it hung low in the sky. I don't think I could have asked for much more and as I walked in I thought about how nice it would be just to carry on walking, not stopping to climb but just carry on walking and enjoying being outside. 

However, we did stop, as we must because of that stupid little thing driving us on to go climbing, pushing on to spend a day freezing cold at a lonely gritstone edge. We had encamped at the base of Neb Buttress and I gear up for the first route of the day The Happy Wanderer, which I thought had got a fantastic name. As it happens the route doesn't wander around all over the place but takes an arete instead. It's quite a clean and obvious line when you're standing at the bottom of it. Needless to say it was much harder than I expected! In the end Andy didn't managed to second it (something about the cold etc) so I abseiled back down my own line.


Andy was up next with Bamford Buttress (severe). He took his time, as it was bloody cold and he making sure he didn't fall off. On seconding the route I had a very rude awakening. I'd been watching him "faff" around trying out lots of different footholds. As far as I could see there wasn't any difficulty from below but then again I wasn't on the sharp end. When I did get on it I realised I'd judge Andy unfairly while I was belaying. I then proceeded to struggle to the top.


By this point the kettle had been put back on (only to run out of gas!) while Andy and I decided to go for an epic free-solo (check out all my American terms) of the Deep Cleft (graded Mod or Diff). I opted for the diff exit as I still had my rack on and squeezing out og the top of a tight chimney didn't seem like fun. Andy went for the full troglodicious experience heading for the Mod. He told me after ward about how the final chimney was so tight, as he exited his trousers were pulled down round his ankles! I wish I'd been there to see him exit.


On finding out the gas was gone we shared a cup of tea, without tea or milk (or heat) and I lead Reach (VS 4c). The guidebook description and name were bang on as mostly the climb was reach, with several long moves and cool mantelshelves. In fact the last move was probably the hardest but most satisfying. By this point we we're pretty cold and I could tell Andy wanted to head off. I suggested that we do one final route and started checking the guidebook. After a few suggestions, one of which got the reply "you'll have a hard time cleaning that on abseil" I decided on something straight up and simple. I lead Bamford Rib (HVS 5a), which was a really cool little route. The holly bush mentioned in the guidebook has certainly got bigger, which mean you cannot rest on the ledge, but it doesn't change the grade. When I did top out Andy called up to me to strip it out on abseil, as he was too cold to climb, Fair game I suppose.


As the light was getting low in the sky I choose to solo Bamford Buttress (HS 4a). I like soloing on the gritstone outcrops and always like to wait until the light is right or it's near the end of the day. I don't know why I enjoy the experience so much but I do. The feeling of freedom and ease of movement across the grit is something that really pleases me. I also like the fact that it's a choice not to place gear or do the route in the safer style but rather to rely on myself not to freak out or get too hung up on it.

Snakes and Ladders (and tunnels)...

... Well the first bit at least.

Climbing-wise, like I said I got 3 days out. One was with Andy and we managed to nip into the quarries between the rain and started off "Snakes and Ladders and Tunnels". We managed to get into california and navigate the second tunnel without getting out feet wet. There seems to have been a lot of new debris on the tunnel floor which makes staying dry quite easy. We then found our chain which seems to be the first "pitch" of climbing. It's only short and I found it pretty easy to lead but quite pumpy. You only need slings to protect yourself from falling off and there are several options to sling pipes etc that are not attached to the chain. Actaully, attaching protection to things other than the chain is probably a good thing, especially if you've seen the state of the top of the Chain. I was surprised to find what would have been a double bolt belay in the tunnel above (there is one hanger missing but the nut is still on the end). It makes for a safe belay which is more 
than I was hoping for.

Andy made fine work of the chain (with a few tugs on the rope as he had the backpack) and we sat staring out of the tunnel entrance, enjoying the new view point and looking over at California arete, which now sat drying in the weak sun. We sorted the ropes and gear, then crawled over a small roof collapse before making our way out of the tunnel. There is a tree which has some tat left on it. I've seen people abseiling from here before and was amazed by what a mess they were making of it (it did look more like a guided group, rather than a bunch of climbers). The abseil is actually quite awkward across that annoying slipping moss covered slate but me and Andy have backed off enough stuff to have become quite good at abseiling. We were down on the ground in no time. We had enough time to look at the amazing blue lake that had become dali's hole before hightailing it out of there, with the promise of a cup of tea when we got back to the car!

(Sadly my camera doesn't do the amazing blue of dali's hole justice)

(the first tunnel, all kitted up!)

(Probably the crux, reaching the first set of bars)

(Andy finally getting hold of the camera)

(Long shutter down the third tunnel)

Well, so far so good. I've actually done some of "Snakes..." now and I'm looking forward to doing the rest of it.

Either love... or stockholme syndrome.

I've been not blogging for a while, basically because I'm not had any motivation to really finish anything. I say finish as apposed to starting anything because well I've started writing stuff but not been abkle to finish it. Also my internet connection at my place is awesomly bad, so I don't really use the internet at home.

Basically it got warm, about 2 days before Andy and I were due to head out to Scotland. By warm I don't mean lovely hot, summer in the middle of winter warm and therefore we could go rock climbing in Scotland instead, but warm enough to strip all the snow off scotland and they rain for about a week. Instead we didn't go. Andy and I kept pushing the leaving date back, I guess both knowing how it was going to turn out in the end but not wanting to admit it to ourselves.

I couldn't believe how angry I was at the weather and how desperate I was to get out winter climbing. I even looked up flights to Chamonix, Ecrins and almost Norway. After a day of stressing about the whole thing I ended up questioning my motivation for winter climbing and therefore climbing in general. Why was I will to put alot of my life on hold on the off chance that there'll be cold weather and decent winter conditions. The same is true in summer as I'm always waiting for the perfect weather of the summer months to get out and trad climb. Don't even get me started on the spring and autumn season. They seem to be characterised by wet weather, failed days out, boudlering in the damp and sitting around in the car waiting for the weather to clear. 

I also end up getting to the middle of winter and pineing for climbing ascorss sunkissed grit in the late evening or an early start to a sea-cliff climbing trip at Gogarth, abseiling in with the waves crashing gently beneath me. Conversely by the middle of summer, I'll be hangin out on a belay at Gogarth and I'll find myself missing the cold of winter climbing, or being wrapped up against the elements and battling on throw a storm just to get off the climb.

In the end I came to some conclusions. I'm not going to give up any of what I do climbing. I've been doing it for so long that I don't know what else to do. I still have that childish feeling of adventure when I plan to head out. I've decided to make the most of any planned day out. Whether is means sitting it out under a rock, waiting for the rain to stop before getting a route in, or just righting off a weekend and climbing indoor and spending more time with my friends and family. I'm going to put more effort into getting more out of other peoples climbing rather than my own, in a effort to become a much less selfish climber. I'm also not going to get hung up on the weather, as I guess everything happens for a reason.

I guess that list doesn't really seem like much. It probably seems more like a reassertion of my normal goals in relation to climbing but it's not. I'd like to be happier with what I can get done in the time I've got, rather than obsession about what I could have got done in the time I don't have, if that makes any sense.

I did however get about 3 good days climbing out of my christmas holiday. I had an amazing christmas with my family and Rachel. We stayed at my parent house for a couple of day over christmas and boxing day, till we got homesick (which happens worryingly quickly) and Rachel also had work. I managed to explode one coffee percolator, which was very annoying as I'd gotten used to having fresh coffee in the morning. I also managed to mess up compleltely over the new year when Rachel and I, with a couple of other friends went to wales for New Years Eve, on a weather report which was a lie. I say I messed up because I forgot to put in Rachel's Wellington Boots and her waterproof. New Years Eve itself was alright. We played Dominos in the pub for a while before, having had too much to drink we headed off. We didn't get much sleep as the wind and rain hammered down all night. James's tent actually got destroyed but he stuck it out and made it through the night. 

I guess I never actually got round to finishing this update off either...

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.