Adrian on North-West Face Route (grade 2). Glyder Fawr.
Since we got back from Anglesey it’s been all go - in a good way! Last Thursday I met up with Beth and Ellie at Windgather for an intro outdoor climbing day. The girls had climbed at indoor walls and were really keen to try real rock. We had a great day and there was no stopping these two. 10 routes, an abseil and some belay building skills later and we finally called it a day - but only because Beth had a train to catch! Thanks for a great day girls.
On Friday I whizzed over to North Wales for a great day on Tryfan with Mike and Barbara. Good weather and lots of fun with Barbara finally conquering the North Ridge. Well done Barbara and I’ll see you in the Spring.
Saturday saw me meeting Adrian in Pete’s Eats for the start of an Advanced Scrambling Course. Unfortunately Brian had to drop out at short notice but Adrian and I blasted a stack of the best scrambles Snowdonia had to offer - and we only got rained on once!
The East and West Faces of Tryfan, Idwal and Glyder Fach - we went everywhere and scrambled everything! By yesterday Adrian was feeling the effects of a full on 4 days but we had a brilliant time and a massive thanks to Adrian for all the laughs along the way. Our scrambling courses for 2008 are filling up fast so please get in touch if you want to book a place.
Last week Cal and I spent a few days with the boys on Anglesey for our last family camping trip of the year. Considering the lovely weather we were surprised to have the campsite to ourselves. Walks, sandcastles, ice-creams and paddling - it’s all good. The only sign that this wasn’t summer was the ice on the tent in the morning and the chilly evenings once the sun had gone down. No problem really as that just gave us a good excuse for a fire!
Today dawned bright and sunny for the first of our UKClimbing ‘Essential Rescue Skills’ Courses. I met up with Mike, Lucy, James and Peter and we headed for a quiet part of Burbage North.
The team were great at picking up new skills and we covered a host of techniques including escaping the system, accompanied abseils, abseiling past a knot, lowering, lowering past a knot, ascending the rope and a variety of simple hoisting systems.
We even had time at the end of the day for me to throw a few scenarios at the group to try out their new found skills. The day was great fun and thanks to all the team for being such good sports. DON’T FORGET TO PRACTICE!
We do have a couple of places left on our November 25th course if you fancy joining us - just get in touch to reserve your place.
On Saturday I was running the first of our UKClimbing ‘ Essential Skills’ courses. I met up with Austin, Susi, David and Peter at Windgather Rocks and we had an excellent day looking at gear placement and selection, different belay set up options, general safety issues and lots of other related chatter. It wasn’t all chalk and talk though - the team also worked their way through a bunch of Windgather classics including Green Crack (S 4a), Wall Climb (HVD), Centre Route (S 4a), Mississippi Crack (S 4a) and Portfolio (HVS 5b). Thanks to everyone for a great day, keep up the climbing and very best wishes to David with his new job.
The great biking weather has continued today. Chilly but clear and sunny. I’ve been out doing some advanced skills training with Mark and Susie and I think I speak for us all in saying it was a brilliant day. We headed out of Hope on the Jaggers Clough circuit and finished on the brilliant brilliant brilliant descent of the old Mamtor road. This throwback to engineering disaster is a classic bit of riding and I never tire (or maybe tyre!) of riding it. I didn’t have my camera today but the photo on the ‘classic rides’ section of the website tells the story.
We’ve got quite a few rides lined up in the next few weeks so give us a ring if you fancy a blast.
We’ve had quite a few orders for our fantastic t-shirts. Give us a ring if you want to get your Christmas presents sorted early! More details further down the blog.
Have a great weekend and try and avoid doing this……..
Parker’s Eliminate (HVS 5a) - one of the best routes at Hobby Moor.
Today has been another gorgeous autumn day and although I had planned to spend it ‘catching up with correspondence’, the blue sky outside the window got to me by early afternoon and a quick session at Hobson Moor quarry near Stalybridge beckoned.
Now ‘Hobby Moor’ isn’t the most picturesque of venues but if you can ignore the broken glass and graffiti it’s actually got some great bouldering, a challenging traverse and a clutch of quality routes. Oh yes - I was also there once when some local youths launched a TV set off the top so a helmet is a good choice too!
Anyway, today we had a good session but it was overshadowed by finding some mega chipping that has taken place at the bottom of the Parker’s Eliminate slab. My friends said it has been there a while but I haven’t been since it happened and I just couldn’t see the point. Chipping is never justified but it’s not made the moves on that section much easier (they weren’t too hard anyway) and it’s forever damaged a really nice piece of rock. Check it out for yourself on the photos below.
The recent chipping at Hobson Moor - you can see the location of the chips directly below the climber on the photo of Parker’s Eliminate.
I’ve been out biking in the Derwent valley with Cal today as part of a fact finding mission for an article I’m writing for Peak District Online. I wanted some photos in nice weather but as we drove over it was raining and dark.
But, we were really glad we’d persevered because soon the sun came out and we had a brilliant day on the Ladybower - Cutthroat Bridge circuit……Peak District mountain biking at it’s best.
Starting the descent back into the Derwent Valley
Even the exhaust falling off the ageing battle bus on the Snake Pass as we drove home didn’t dampen our spirits!
Today I’ve been out again with Catherine at Stanage. Stanage popular end with only 5 cars in the layby - now when does that happen?! Catherine is fairly new to climbing but she’s making great progress due to her enthusiasm (driving for 5 hours from Warwick for 5 hours climbing at Stanage!) and determination (if you’d seen Catherine do battle with the crux of ‘Black Hawk Hell Crack’ (s 4a) you’d know what I mean). By lunchtime the sun had returned to the peak and we had a great day. Thanks Catherine - and keep up the climbing.
This weekend I’ve been with Piers and Chris on a Peak District ‘Learn to Lead’ course. The weather wasn’t really playing ball on Saturday and we headed to Froggatt in light drizzle (at least on a day like this it wasn’t busy!). Despite the rock never really drying out the guys did really well and we covered a lot of key technical skills as well as climbing a bunch of quality routes. Chris ended the day leading Heather Wall (S 4a) with a top rope back up which was a fantastic effort given the green slime at the bottom, the wet frictionless slab in the middle and the seeping jamming crack at the top! We didn’t get back to the cars until darkness was falling - but did get home in time to see England pull it out of the bag against France.
On Sunday we headed to Birchen and ‘enjoyed’ low cloud, light rain and wet rock all day. Again the team were undaunted and over the course of the day made several leads up to severe (with backups). Piers had made a weighty investment in the most comprehensive set of Black Diamond hex’s I’d ever seen. Fortunately, on his final stylish lead of the day (Emma’s Temptation - VD 4c) he finally managed to find a placement for his uber hex (size 26 ?) and his weekend was complete.
To add to the entertainment Chris, being quite a ‘vocal’ climber, freely shared his end of day ascent of ‘Emma’s Delusion’ (s 4a) with, well, everyone. By the time he was at the crux there were people watching from the Eric Byne campsite, the Robin Hood pub, Chatsworth House and Sheffield. Who needs rugby for entertainment?! Thanks for your enthusiasm in the face of adversity guys - and a lot of fun!
