It didn’t rain yesterday so we did go climbing. We went to Twistleton Scar which is in Ingleton. And what a nice place it is too, it’s like Stanage but without the hoards of other people and the nasty gritstone.

Limestone is a funny rock, it’s either smooth and quite grippy, polished like glass, or razor sharp. When it gets wet it’s lethally slippy - afterall, as we all learnt at school - limestone dissolves in water.

Topping out on the routes (which were all quite short 10m efforts) was a surprise, there’s so much choice to belay from. You can pretty much climb onto the top, sit down and within arm’s reach are enough knobbles of rock or holes in the rock to tie yourself and the rest of the planet down.

Different climbing techniques though. Lots of laybacks and mantleshelf moves, but hand-jamming wasn’t always necessary.

New group of kids arrive in 20 minutes, I’d best go and get ready…

We’ve got a group in from Essex. Unless you live in Essex, I know what image you’ve got in your head; there’s a hint of Burberry in your vision isn’t there?

Fortunately, this lot aren’t a bunch of vicious chav scum although the first night they were here they managed to make noise and play outside until 2am. You can spot the first twinges of chavness in some of them and they’re all cheeky as hell, but once you get accepted into their little group and are seen as “alright” they’re not too bad. I’ve just taken some of them on a mountain bike session and it went so well we went to the shop in Little Braithwaite and bought ice-cream and sat by the (now filled in) mill pond up the lane.

This morning and yesterday I was freezing them in the Ghyll which is always good fun. I like the experiential learning that happens when they turn up in hardly any clothing. You suggest they might want to put more layers on and they look at you as though you have three heads. The learning happens when the first person screams as the cool, clear filtered mountain water seeps up their legs.

I’m not sure why, but I have a fairly sore ankle and heel. It just happened after doing a climb the other day. I’d climbed Ardus at Shepherd’s Crag. The route is one of those routes described as “classic” which can either mean it’s manky as hell and was last climbed 50 years ago, or that there’s one particular part that surprises you. Being the lakes, most “classic” routes seem to have bizarre traverses on them. Ardus is no exception. It’s a hand-traverse high above the trees on a very exposed slab. If you look to the left you can see right across Derwent Water to Skiddaw, and since the route goes left, that’s the way you look. Once at the end of the traverse you’ve got a small crack to climb. Somehow you do climb it (I recon we’re all gifted with levitation that kicks in when you really need it) and arrive with your hands at the top noticing a lack of things to pull the rest of your body up with.

What’s odd about my ankle is that standing on my tip-toes doesn’t hurt, but twisting my foot does a bit, and pressing my heel down definitely hurts. I might have twisted it on the path walking back to the car, once again proving that most climbing accidents happen on the way home and not on the crag itself (although if you read last year’s Langdale Mountain Rescue report, two people did fall to the ground when climbing, and most climbers know someone who knows someone who’s hurt themselves in some nasty way climbing).

Day off tomorrow, parents visiting in the afternoon.

Lead my first VS today - Fool’s Paradise on Gowder Crag, Borrowdale. Just above and behind the Lodore Falls hotel. Crazy route that must have been created by someone who was on a large amount of drugs. You start off going up a crappy moss-covered slab, over some grass to a tree. Then there’s a whacky off-balance move around and on to an arete which you go up. This then leads to a descent for five metres into an ants’ nest (where the unsuspecting second treads on quite a few, causing all hell to break loose, ensuring any admiring of the view is quickly cut short as pairs of chomping jaws attach to ankles). Once the ants have been dealt with, you traverse along an exposed slab to a small pointy block.

At this block there’s a chance to get close to the lead and wonder where to go next. There’s a groove to the left which has a finger crack to hold on to, then a bit where you go off-route and end up looking at blank, smooth rock. Leaders at this point seem to say “oh dear” in that tone of voice that indicates a problem. Some weird moves are required to lunge towards a few knobbles of rock and up you go to a big ledge. All of this being done with the assumption you are on belay. Any communication between climbers is lost in the din of the falls below. Other climbers can be heard yelling “safe” and “are you safe?” at each other, but not the person on the other end of your rope. If all the rope goes upwards and becomes tight, it’s time to climb… probably.

Once again the original climbers’ drugs kick in, and instead of climbing upwards, you toddle along a ledge for apparently ten metres looking for a yew tree. This ledge is quite exposed, wide and gear is only placed because you’re leading a route, not soloing it. A brief lesson in horticlulture ensues and after navigating your way around a thorn bush you find the required tree.

According to the guidebook, the final pitch is to climb a chimney to the top. The chimney is fun, involving lots of bridging and shuffling of feet which miraculously works despite the lack of decent foot holds. At several points gear can be placed above your head while using a handy knee-jam to avoid dropping onto the bored belayer’s head (the belayer at this point muttering encouraging comments of “it’ll be dark soon, I’m hungry, hurry up”). At another point you place some gear of precisely the correct size with that burst of speed only reserved for those who are picturing their sudden flying lesson and would rather it was short. The descerning climber can even admire a well corroded friend that has been abandoned in a crack, and an equally mangled sling. Someone else has been here, and they were having just as much fun as you. Other people were on the route recently, and they liked chalk. The climbing alternates between looking for the white patches to hold onto, and the shiny bits to stand on.

The trick seems to be to not get totally jammed in the chimney since the top is only a few inches wide and only the most anorexic climbers would fit up it. All the way up this, several ravens sit with their beady eyes gazing upon you, and at inappropriate times divebomb and threaten to crap on your helmet. Quoth the climber - nevermore.

Finally, with a large easily angled slab and a swing out to the left you make a quick move towards a tree, grab it with both hands and hope it’s well routed. It’s at this point you notice you are 10m from your last piece of gear, reach down for a sling to put around the tree and find only a few nuts and some quickdraws. Climbing is full of opportunities for being creative and voiding manufacturers recommendations and design limitations. Five quickdraws connected together makes something that’ll go around a tree and take a rope. It might even withstand a body falling onto it. I wouldn’t know since I didn’t fall off to find out.

The route was great fun. The mix of climbing upwards, sideways and downwards added to the excitement of holding onto tiny holds high above the trees. No wonder my guidebook claims it’s the most popular route in the valley.

Some fucker has stolen some of my climbing gear! I leant my gear to one of the people I work with so he could go climbing. He took most of it up the crag with him (He went off to do Troutdale Pinnacle) but left some in his bag at the bottom. However by the time he’d finished the route some cunt had decided to take his bag. Not only was some of my climbing gear in it, but also his keys, wallet and other rather useful items.

This is all a bit shit. Not only have I now not got some of my own stuff, but the person I lent it to has to pay for its replacement. I don’t blame him for it going missing, it’s one of the risks with lending people stuff, it’s just really crap that he’s now got to fork out money to replace it. All because some twat couldn’t keep his fingers to himself.

If the person who took the stuff uses it, I hope the rather old second hand quickdraws he now owns fail. If he’s sold them to some unsuspecting person, I hope they work well, but that the thief falls off something high. Utter bastard

Me! for forgetting the rope!

All set to go and climb Troutdale Pinnacle. Climbing boots, guide book, helmet, some water, even an OS map so we could find it exactly. There was even a parking space for us and the walk wasn’t that taxing. Nice dry rocks and the sun was still out.

Half way to the bottom of the crag I turn around and say “You’ve not got a rope in your bag, have you?”, to which Paul says “No… you were bringing that”. “Ah…” says I.

Yes, you see ropes are useful things to take when going climbing. You can tie them to things, like yourself and the rocks. Without them it’s a bit like going outside without your trousers on. The rope doesn’t make your climbing ability any better, it’s all psychological. I’m quite sure I can do the climb without falling off, but the prospect of soloing a 100m climb doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.

So we came back and watched TV instead.

Angus is supposed to be coming down tomorrow, but since I’ve not been able to reach him for the past few days I suspect he isn’t. Should he turn up sometime, and if he has the forethought to bring his climbing stuff, we’ll go and do the route - with a rope!

Duh.

And this evening I’m off to climb Troutdale Pinacle, which is on Black Crag in Borrowdale. Should be good fun. It’s great living across the lake from some of the best climbing in the Lake District

Currently online uploading a week’s Audioscrobbler stats and letting Amarok download some suggestions for me. I could do with getting some speakers to plug into my laptop, the built in ones are awful. There’s a computer shop in Keswick, I’ll have to see if it has any acceptable speakers.

I passed

The assessment was really cool. I had to find two people to help me. I thought they’d just be hanging off ropes with me rescuing them. What actually happened was that I was told the two people had never been climbing before, and that I had to do something with them for half a day.

I worked out a little plan of what to do and off we went. I was fairly sure there’d be some rescues involved at some point, but even when I had my victims climbing onto great big ledges the “OK blah, pretend you’re stuck just there” never appeared, it was great.

ML next… off tomorrow to wander about the hills practicing my navigation (and also testing my new tent).

It’s my birthday and I have the next two days off Today I went climbing with Angus at what turned out to be a really good crag called The Whangie. It’s in the Lowland Outcrops guidebook should they ever reprint it so people can buy it again. The guidebook advises you top-rope the routes, although “belays are in some cases difficult to arrange”. Go there and you understand why. The crag consists of a short rocky outcrop on the side of Auchineden Hill with absolutely no belays at the top - the grass ends and the cliff begins. Just in front of this is a big wedge of rock that looks as though it peeled away from the main face. The wedge has a knife-edge top with nowhere to sit, let alone belay from.

We dispensed with the ropes, the routes either being devoid of any protection anyway or impossible to belay from the top of. On two of the taller routes I used a rope and once reaching the top I just took in the slack and as Angus climbed, I walked backwards down the hill, using the top of the route as a pulley.

I managed to climb ten routes, which now means I have enough to go and do my SPA re-assessment. We’re supposed to be going climbing again tomorrow. I’m off down the pub tonight so who knows what tomorrow will be like. Also, a storm is blowing its way through at the moment and it’s bucketing it down outside - so much so that I have to shut my window. Let’s hope it goes away by the morning.

I forgot that most of Polldubh is actually Mica Schist. Ergh, it was like trying to climb slime. Wait… that’s because it WAS slime! Don’t visit Sheep Fank Wall unless you want to see the best collection of black slime and moss. Oh to be able to lead climbs that aren’t path-of-least-resistance drainage gullies.

Had a fun couple of minutes trying to get up a VS which was completely dry, had loads of protection, and was also really polished. Knowing where to put your hands and feet was easy, just look for the shiny bits… Problem being, I’m not Spiderman and I can’t hold onto things that are smoother than glass. Quite surprised what I can hold onto though, the first pitch of Curve Ridge being mostly a featureless bumpy slab you just have to move up quickly, before gravity realises what’s going on. Climbing it was a curious affair. I like holds I can hook my fingers around. I’m not so great if I just have to splay my fingers on the bare rock, press down and hope for the best - especially when my last runner just went ‘plink!’ out of its hole and slid down the rope to the next piece of gear!

However, you either try the moves, or you get lowered down again, and you don’t get to fill your sacred SPA logbook by being lowered off the tricky bits of climbs. It seems that if I stare at the rock long enough something in my brain wakes up and I realise that all I have to do is stand up on one leg… after that things just flow - hands grab things I couldn’t see before, feet magically stick to bare rock or the tiniest bumps imaginable and before I know it, I’ve gone up another four metres to a big foothold. The other side of this is making a move that you know is going to put you off-balance, standing there on one wobbly leg that’s only connected to the rock by half your big toe and the other foot resting on the edge of the crag. You then veeerry carefully shuffle an arm around to unclip your chosen pieces of gear - get in this situation often enough and you can instantly size up gear and cracks by merely looking at them - and flail the crack with it. When the gear flops out the crack for the 100th time you keep on trying in the vain hope it’ll mysteriously expand and fit the flared-outward crack you’ve chosen. Eventually something almost approaching a dodgy gear placement is found and you clip it to the rope as your feet make that unforgettable “I’m just going to slide off this lege if you don’t mind” feeling.

Once over this tricky part you start climbing upwards, passing plenty of excellent places for protection, but since you’re moving upwards who cares if there’s a hole for a size-10 hex you could bungee jump off? The top’s just an armspan away!

All this effort to haul your body up 15m of rock. In the car it sounds like a good idea, and until you meet the tricky part it seems almost fun. Still, only another 10 or so to magic up before I can do my SPA re-assessment (which isn’t even an assessment of my climbing ability!). Maybe I’ll have to do some Zen climbing or the dodgy trick of converting top-roped or seconded routes into lead ones. Logbooks are such fun things to mess with ;)

I can lead Hard-Severe (and it is kind of hard too! One or two “move now, or go home” moves on it), but can’t yet lead VS. My fear of going kersplat prevents me from comitting to the moves I know I need to be making - mind you, until now I’ve not had the need to stick a leg out to one side and hang off it while semi lay-backing with my arms.

Ring of Steal tomorrow. The Aonach Eagach ridge will have to wait until better weather - and another Glen Coe trip - arrives.

I’ve been deferred on my SPA Assessment. Bugger.

Need to do fifteen more lead climbs.

Oh well, I’m currently dosed up on some interesting brown painkillers and don’t really care. Wonder if I can up my climbing grade from Severe to VS in fifteen climbs.