rginns blog

I went over to Widdop on Saturday morning. The less said about that the better. I might as well have gone to Brownstones, I would have got more done. So I had a bit of time to spare yesterday and decided to head over to a local venue to have a look at an old project that I started a few years ago but never finished, partly because it wasn't very close to where I was living at the time, and partly because the summer in question was particularly wet and I lost the psyche for it. The project is a fairly long traverse, nothing groundbreaking but with several distinct cruxes which should nevertheless be possible with a bit of effort. To my surprise the whole crag was pretty much dry, which even in the summer is relatively unusual - there are a lot of cracks, and there consequently tends to be a lot of seepage. I managed to work a solution for the intial crux which involves a couple of stiff low moves on small crimps, but couldn't climb through it. I only had a short window so had t

Cracking weather on saturday necessitated a climbing session, and so I headed to the north east up to Yorkshire. It's so easy to become pissed off with day to day drudgery, but it struck me over the weekend how lucky I am to be living in such a great area for climbing. Yorkshire gritstone only an hour away, Cumbrian limestone about the same, the Peak district not much further, and the glorious gritstone quarries on the doorstep. Where I grew up in Northamptonshire there are barely hills, let alone crags, and most of the quarries are gravel pits, or otherwise filled with water. When the house finally goes through and we're up in Egerton, the quarries become a realistic summer morning prospect, if I have the motivation. Although if Hank is prepared to do laps on Moss wall at 7.30am in the summer then I really should at least try to get my arse in gear. Last week the club had a talk by the man Fawcett. Or maybe I should say the Legend Fawcett. I was struck by his modesty, but the

Went to Widdop this morning, early doors. Arrived at the crag at 8.20. Short version: tried and failed on Splashdown. Tried and failed on Grumpy Old Men. Had a good time though. I'll edit the longer version when I have more time...

Well, in general I've pretty much done nothing. Went to the Roaches last weekend though with the intention of tradding. To say it's been bloody ages since putting a harness on is no exaggeration, but I was looking forward to getting out on the sharp end to be fair, and the weather was looking ok. We made good time down and arrived at around half nine. As ever in this part of the world, there were dry conditions everywhere except at the crag. As we drove past Hen Cloud it was clear that the Roaches would be in mist. When we got to the crag, it wasn't very good. Cold, wet, with a fine mist falling incessantly. Not to be deterred, we headed over to the upper left hand side near inverted staircase and started on a slabby route. Now, under normal conditions, especially with mileage the route is piss, but in the event, we backed off due to rain stopping play. Mossy unprotected slabs in the wet are not my cup of tea to be honest. At least not that day. It was becoming fairly obvio