rginns blog

Blackstone Edge is an awesome crag, situated high on the moor above littleborough and I had planned on meeting up there with a few people yesterday. The weather wasn't looking promising as I left the house, and a call from Bruce confirmed that the crag was shrouded in mist. Nevertheless the weatherforecast looked as though it would clear out later on, so it was still worth the risk. The idea of todays visit was to see what bouldering problems were 'done years ago and try to reconcile them with the latest information. The cloud didn't look like it was disappearing and as I arrived I went straight past the first carpark and had to brake sharply to avoid shooting past the second. Visibility was virtually zero. Bruce was already there when I arrived and we got chatting while we waited for the others. GCW arrived, then R-Man, and Gordon, and we all trudged up to the crag. As we were walking up, the cloud was dipping into the valley, creating a great cloud inversion with the crag

Last week I was working in Lutterworth, and the wife had a baby shower to go to on the Sunday in the area, so I decided to find somewhere to climb. Leicestershire isn't too well endowed with climbing, and when I lived there we used to always head further afield, but I decided to give Beacon Hill a try as it was close, and looked like the best option in the circumstances. I paid £2.50 to get into the carpark, which was a bit annoying, and parked up. Wandering up to the first crag, it was apparant that the rock, which is apparantly Hornstone was horrendously polished in places, and unnervingly greasy. It reminded me of the polish at Hutton Roof. Actually, the routes were not too dissimilar either, mainly beinjg easy trad solos. I wouldn't really describe it as a bouldering venue as it does in the guide as most of the routes are pretty easy and the harder ones have a definite trad feel about them. After looking at the summit crag, I moved down to crag number 4 which had a nice cou