Vertebrate Publishing have just published a brilliant new select guidebook to the Peak District that covers over 850 classic routes and 350 boulder problems.
The guidebook focuses on routes in the Mod to HVS range with suggestions for E1’s to try. Crags covered include Birchen, Burbage, Froggatt, Curbar, Stanage, Millstone, The Roaches, Kinder, Wimberry, Windgather, Stoney Middleton, Wildcat, Horseshoe Quarry and Harpur Hill.
We have come to expect Vertebrate guidebooks to be accurate, give clear route descriptions and have inspiring photography - this guide doesn’t disappoint!
A perfect guidebook for occasional Peak visitors and regular Peaksters who fancy a new read. Well done Vertebrate.
This weekend I’ve been out with Franca and Yasmina for the first learn to lead course of the year. Yesterday the rain held off until about 1pm ……but then it really came! No matter - the team carried on regardless and we looked at lots of belay setups, rope management issues and gear placements - as well as climbing a bunch of gritstone classics.
At the end of the day F & Y headed off for a well earned meal at The Castle (very highly recommended for a great meal) in Castleton and a good nights sleep. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to join them as I had to head for a climbing wall meeting in Sheffield….and a late finish.
I woke to the bleary eyed reality that I had lost an hours much needed sleep and printed off an MWIS weather forecast that showed mucho showers. Not the news I had hoped for as there was so much we wanted to cover today. But in reality something really special happened. Maybe where the forecast had said showers it really meant sun because that’s all we had all day! How cool is that!
We headed up to Birchen where F & Y put all the skills learnt yesterday into practice. There was no stopping these two and be the end of the day they had led 8 routes up to hard severe…………….and I had the feeling that if they didn’t have to face the drive back to London they would have been up for several more.
Many thanks for a great weekend Franca and Yasmina….and keep up the climbing.
The French Alps have enjoyed a great ski season and we headed down to Les Arcs last week to enjoy the latest metre dump of the white stuff. The skiing was awesome and we had a great time mixing some family piste bashing with some ‘adult time’ off piste. More snow fell most nights during the week and the season looks set for a great finale. Only trouble is …it’s a long time to wait until next season!
I got back from Southend and whizzed right up to the Lake District to help on an ATC Cadets Adventure Camp. The plan for Thursday was Kayaking but the forecast was so hideous that we opted for an inddor venue and had a great day in Keswick Climbing Wall. The cadets had a brilliant attitude and we got loads done before heading back to the excellent centre for an awesome meal courtesy of the camp’s own Gordon Ramsey….Al! Most people headed out to see a film in the evening but I decided to be all righteous and catch up on some paperwork instead…..then felt slightly relieved when they all got back reporting that the film had been rubbish anyway!
On Friday we went for a mountain day up and around the Old Man of Coniston. It was very wintery but we had great visibility and it was another brilliant day. We covered loads of skills from accident and lost person scenarios to navigation. I had to dash off as soon as we got back as the family were heading straight down to Dover for a ski-ing trip…….
Oh I do like to be beside the 2007 ‘Pier of the year’…..and today I was! I’ve been down in Southend for the last 2 days having a pre-expedition meeting for the Southern Tanzania trip that I’m running later in the year. A chance to meet the team, have a good night in a B&B, an uber breakfast and a stroll by Southend Pier before the trip home. Variety is the spice and all that.
On Saturday I joined Phil and the boys to run a days introductory climbing for them at Tremadog. They were staying at the Birmingham based Cave & Crag Club’s excellent hut at Pant Ifan, so I joined up with them there and we went to Craig Pant Ifan Upper Tier which is only a few minutes walk from the hut.
The weather was kind to us in the morning and the guys climbed a host of routes from very difficult to very severe. We went back to the hut for lunch just as the rain started then went back for more in the afternoon. By mid afternoon the rain had turned torrential so we retreated to a nearby barn and finished the day looking at everything from belay set ups to ascending a rope. A brilliant day and many thanks to Phil for organising it and to all the guys for inviting me along.
As I left they were sparking up their barn barbeque but I had to get back to meet up with John Paul for two days private guiding on Sunday and today. John Paul was keen to mix some work on navigation with some climbing so we spent the mornings on Kinder and Derwent then went to Stanage and Froggatt in the afternoon. The weather has been great (particularly today) and John Paul climbed everything I threw at him with determination and navigated around the Peak with aplomb! A great couple of days - thanks John Paul and I hope you had a safe trip south.
Last weekend was our oldest little man’s 6th birthday and his party was great - climbing wall with a group of his buddies, then party hotdogs and a birthday cake shaped like a mountain!
The full on sporty theme carried on with his presents - football and boots, skateboard and pads, diving mask and fins…..you get the idea!
There he goes. Here’s a good YouTube of a whipper from the climb in the photo on our ‘About Us’ page. People often ask us about the photo which is a shot taken of Paul on the uber classic roof route ‘Kachoong’ at Arapiles. It’s graded 21 in the Australian system and is all trad protected apart from a peg half way across the roof which is probably what the dude in the photo has clipped (you can back this up with a cam like you see in our photo).
If you can hang around you can also get a little cam on the lip of the roof before you move up onto the headwall but most people go for it without. One guidebook claims it is a climb that should be ‘dedicated to the God Kodak’ because the viewing platform you can see in the video allows such great shots to be taken.
It’s a great route but only one of hundreds of fantastic routes at Arapiles. Time to get that flight booked!?
We’ve been doing a lot of reorganising to our equipment storeroom over the last couple of days. In a true Blue Peter stylee we’ve been cutting, sticking and building our way to the peak of organisation. No longer will we lose that widget or wotsit 10 minutes before leaving for a course - maybe!
We have also been sorting and cataloguing some exciting (and very very shiny) new kit from DMM which we’ll be putting to very good use over the Summer season. As a result of all this activity we have also created a small mountain of gear that we no longer need (but which is still in very good condition I hasten to add!) that we will be putting on the website and UKClimbing as soon as we get it sorted out - keep your eyes peeled to grab yourself a bargain!
Oh yes - and a top tip…..Wickes is great for strong cheap shelves!
We may be being a bit premature but we’ve just got back from Scotland a few days earlier than originally expected and there’s been a real feeling that spring is in the air today. The Peak has been glorious and we enjoyed a great bouldering session at Stanage followed by a pub lunch where we actually were able to sit outside (for a while at least!). It was brilliant to leave the ice tools at home, pull on the rockshoes and get back onto the gritstone. There’s even a few early season flowers popping up - The peak looks peachy!
I’m sorry we’ve not been posting over the last couple of weeks but a technical blog gremlin meant things were going a little wild and in the end it seemed easier to wait until we got back to sort it all out. Scotland has a reasonable amount of snow at the moment but there has also been some ’serious’ winds over the last couple of weeks. Luckily we’ve managed to run all our planned activities although a little creativity has been needed at times! For example, our final 3 mountain days were spent in the Grey Corries (pictured above) but winds of 80mph+ meant we spent 1 of the 2 nights in a bothy rather than snowholing both nights - Scotland requires flexibility! It’s very possible that the groundwork is being laid for some great conditions over the coming weeks so we may well get back up there in late March/early April.
In the meantime our thoughts are turning to the Spring and Summer season and it’s shaping up to be our busiest so far. We are trying to get everyone that’s contacted us booked in as and when they want but if you see a course you fancy please let us know as soon as you can or you may be too late. Having said that, please don’t be put off if you see a course and the dates you want are booked up. We have several people wanting to team up with another person to fill a course or have some 1:2 guiding so we will try to accommodate everyone’s requests.
We are also going to be running more foreign trips than ever this year. Plans are being made for some autumn scrambling/via ferrata trips to the Costa Blanca, a sport climbing trip to Sardinia and a spring visit to Finale Ligure in Italy. We will be putting more information onto the website as soon as possible but don’t hesitate to let us know if any of those sound of interest - as always spaces are limited and our foreign trips are always popular.
Last but not least, I’ve been using my time constructively during the long evenings in Scotland and have a few more literary masterpieces ready to go onto the website. There’s an account of an accident in Jordan that I originally wrote for the Mountain Rescue Magazine, another Peak ‘ride guide’ that was written for my regular contribution to Peak District Online and I’m in the middle of a piece that has suggestions for some quality scrambles around the UK. Thanks for all the positive feedback on our advice articles - it’s always great to know when they have been useful.
Oh dear. It’s just started hailstoning against the window. Maybe I need to take back everything I said about an early Spring!
![[Amanda Skeldon on Sunset Crack (VS 4c), Froggatt., 2 kb]](http://img.ukclimbing.com/t/83427.jpg "[Amanda Skeldon on Sunset Crack (VS 4c), Froggatt., 2 kb]")
Vertebrate Publishing have just published a brilliant new select guidebook to the Peak District that covers over 850 classic routes and 350 boulder problems.
