Day After Day

Recently I've been very busy climbing wise. The weather (although now woeful) has been superb over the past few weeks and its enabled many long and fun days out on the rock. The best ticks of this purple patch include finishing off two old projects in the form off Genocide and Ben's Wall on the Southern Grit and soloing the in-vogue Churnet highball, The Pride.

Despite these ticks the most encouarging day I had of late was at Black Rocks. Its been a goal of mine for a while to try and climb an E9 and the Hard Grit classic Meshuga is top of the list. This day was the first time I'd tried it and I was pleasantly suprised by the difficulty and the size of the holds (Id built them up to be tiny and slopey in my head). I managed all the moves quickly and more or less climbed it in two halves. It feels like fitness is holding me back on this one but that is ok, I'll only get fitter spending the summer on steep peak limestone. Although shelved for now I feel like this route will be a possibility for next winter!

More recently the weather has been fairly patchy with the April Showers setting in. Despite this I've still managed some cool days out. The esoteric Shining Cliff provided the perfect location in the showery weather, where Me and Dad made short work of the classic E5 Lazy Day. This is a bizarre route that follows a perfect quarried grit arete, not sound so strange? well, the catch is that it can be protected by an old ladder of bolts to the left, making it an odd F6b+. Dad did it with, and sunsequently without, the suspect bolts and I made a nervy flash without.

Such a shame the weather has gone to shit now, getting cabin fever sitting in the house for days on end. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, off to the popular Anston Stones on Friday. Psyched for this.

Lee, Ciao.

All over the place...

The great weather recently has meant the return of the limestone; Chee Dale pretty much all dry, cornice withstanding, the tor looking good and blackwell all dry. This has meant some great days out, trying things that were well out of my reach before the winter.

Firstly, me and dad headed down to Willersley, a steep, mainly trad, lime crag near Matlock. We finished off some old business in the form of Hallowed Be My Name 7c, and also ticked the rather good Blessed Are The Weak 7a+. The morning after it was also a case of trying to tick off old projects as I visited the always pleasant Squirrel Buttress in Millers Dale. Again I tried and failed to finish off the esoteric classic, Candy Kaned 7C. Theres a video of Ethan Doing it here -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehwkFdprmYA

After a belay day on Curbar, where Dad GU'ed The Fall E6 6b, it was back to Chee Dale for the first session this year. Needless to say it was packed with people keen for the lime, I wonder whether they'll still be keen come July, I know i won't.... Anyways, we got on the classic Moffat testpiece Orange Sunshine 7c+ and worked out the moves pretty quickly, however I fell repeatedly on the last hard move. It will go next time and considering I've never climbed 7c+ it felt perfectly ok.

After April Fools day it seemed the weather was playing us for fools again, this time the forecast reading a staggering 15c drop. Taking advantage of this change me and Steve hit up the bitter Burbage South in order to try the horrific Simbas Pride E8 6b. After a few hours of work Steve had it dialled and will probably go solo next time. I had alot of work to do on the top moves before a solo was attempted. After this we popped into the Secret Garden and ticked the classic Dick Williams 7B+.

Looking cold for the next few days which is great as I'm not ready for full lime immersion yet. Hoping to head to Black Rocks with Steve on Thursday, with Gaia and Meshuga on the menu.

Lee.

Heres a photo of Eddie Barbour on the dyno move, Simbas Pride.