Reach For The Stars!

Saturday & Sunday 25th & 26th June.

Last weekend I returned to the Lake District to climb with Gavin Kellett and tick a couple of classic Lakeland routes off.

Saturday - there was a time when the first thing I would do after an evening working on the doors of Leeds would be to go annoy door staff at another venue with my drunken behaviour, so to head straight up to Langdale to catch a few hours sleeping in the car before climbing marks a bit of a change of lifestyle!

After a few hours shut eye in the car park at Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel I woke in time to meet Gavin as he arrived from Scotland. I had met Gavin a couple of years ago on International Mountain Leader training so was looking forward to a catch up as well as a climb or two.

 I have probably been bit guilty of overlooking a lot of quality climbing as I have looked to push my grade up this year and whilst it has been good to improve my climbing grade it's not always the best time to improve the core skills when concentrating on just stating on the rock! We would spend the day at Raven Crag in Langdale as it offered us a number of routes and has a short walk in as rain was forecast.

 As the day panned out their were many climbers at the crag so route choice was a matter of getting on what was free at the time.

We climbed 'Centipede' (S 4a**), 'The Origional Route' (S 4a***) and 'Evening Wall' (S 4a*). Good climbing on good routes and gave me a chance to concentrate on making good gear placements, building solid belays and slick(ish) rope work!

Sunday - We had driven around to Borrowdale Saturday evening and after a 'couple' of social drinks catching up and generally putting the world to rights spent the night sleeping in our respective vehicles. Rising at an unheard of 7:30am for myself we made our way to 'Shepherds Crag' and were the first ones on the crag.

 Gavin has a lot of previous climbing experience in the Lakes and recommended 'Little Chamonix' for our first route. What a great route! Graded at VD*** the route offers great climbing and exposure whilst offering good protection, this will be a definite route I will take people up in the future.

 

With the crag getting busier we opted to do 'Ardus', with the option of a direct VS 4C finish it would be a little more challenging. A 'thrutchy' corner is how I would describe it and though it meant topping out into undergrowth and scrambling around to find a suitable, solid belay I was happy to get another Lakeland VS4C multi pitch route under my belt.

Summary - another quality couple of days in the magnificent Lake District. Good climbing, good routes and a chance to catch up with Gavin too. Only 2 routes on the Sunday due to the rain moving in but a great weekend!

Borrowdale - With Andy Swann (& 'The Lads')

 The past week I spent a couple of days climbing in the magnificent Borrowdale in the Lake District with Andy Swann of 'Grit, Track & Trail' and 'The Lads'. 'The Lads' being the dreaded midges! 😤

Tuesday - and I met up with Andy, who holds the MIA award and has been helping me improve my climbing technique and grade, to drive up to Borrowdale which is found south of Keswick in the Lake District.

 Even though I have the excuse of being a very late starter to climbing, I am still a little embarrassed to admit this was my first climbing trip to the Lakes. With the weather forecast to be fine I was more than looking forward to it.

 Leaving the vehicle in Grange we made our way on foot to 'Black Crag', which is a rhyolite (volcanic rock) crag with a number of multi pitch routes, through the surrounding woodland.

Unfortunately we were soon joined at the bottom of the crag by 'the lads', midges! Although I can accept that these tiny flying critters have their place in the food chain is there any need for so many of them to be in action at once, swarming over any bare flesh and leaving itchy little bites??? 😤😤 I had applied jungle formula insect spray containing the chemical and I swear I caught one licking it off my the back of my hand!

 I thought the rock was top drawer to climb and the routes we did (The Shroud VS 4c** & Troutdale Pinnacle Super Direct HVS 5a***) outstanding. Climbing alternate pitches gave me chance to practice not only my climbing but gear placements, rope work, building belays, and change over stages while accepting any tips and guidance on where anything could be improved from Andy (who has climbed a bit previously!).

Wednesday - we made the hour long walk in to 'Sergeant Crag Slabs' from Stonethwaite. The thought was to gain a little more height and be exposed to some stronger breeze which the midges can't handle, the bast@rds were there in force and battling the strong breeze 😤😫.

Andy taking extreme fashion measures to combat the midges!

But midges or not this again was a great crag. 'Friendly' rock, good gear placements and great routes.

 I seconded Andy on 'Lakeland Cragsman' (HVS 5a***), 'Terminator 2' (HVS 5a***), 'Between The Lines' (E1 5b**) before going back to 'Lakeland Cragsman' to lead it myself.

 Being keen to improve my grade I was happy to second the routes to gain some confidence. 

Summary - a quality couple of days!

I'm very aware how quickly I can fall into bad habits so to climb with Andy whilst also be given advice on best practice and  pointers as to where I can improve worked well in my 'sort of' training plan.