The mixed weather on Sunday gave me hope that an exposed windy spot would dry quickly from any showers that passed meaning a good afternoons climbing could be had even if it wasn't consistantly dry.
With it being a bank holiday a not too popular spot would be good. Also, I was all out of climbing partners, losing out to: house moving, N. Wales (x2) and the Cricket.
Hoping to avoid the crowds it seemed a good opportunity for a soloing day at the far left of Stanage. I was a bit inspired by John Long's tales of having 'an El Cap' day at Joshua tree where he and John Bachar would try to solo 2900 feet of rock in a day. I thought it would fun to try to climb as much rock as possible without being too bothered about exactly which routes or how hard they are . I thought it would be good to start at climb number 1 (in the 1989 guide, the one with Johnny Dawes on the cover) and work eastwards climbing every route I could solo.
High Neb in sun and shadow on the walk up The first few routes were a tad green but I dragged my self up them being blown about in the wind, wondering what I had let myself in for.
It wasn't long though before I was cruising up a lot of top notch gritstone kept in great nick thanks to the buffeting wind, mostly diffs to severes with the odd harder route as well. It was great fun to get stuck into quite a few chimneys that normally I wouldn't look twice at, from the tight offwidth thrutching of Boomerang Chimney to full back and footing up Manhatten Chimney. There were a few high ball boulder problem routes and a lot of mileage.
Self portrait near the top of Richards Sister, Severe, round the corner from the Marble Wall area.
I ground to a halt after the Crow Chin buttress having climbed 29 routes for a total of 249m of climbing. Tired. I'm pretty keen on the idea of working along the edge soloing everything easy but it might be the work of the lifetime, or at least a longtime.
Comfy climbing boots, cotton Echo pants (out next spring) and an Arrow half zip. Pefect for a windy cool day moving fast, ish on the grit. I don't like writing about product, but I was wearing them for the purpose I designed them for and they were really good. As a designer you can't ask for more than that..
It wasn't long though before I was cruising up a lot of top notch gritstone kept in great nick thanks to the buffeting wind, mostly diffs to severes with the odd harder route as well. It was great fun to get stuck into quite a few chimneys that normally I wouldn't look twice at, from the tight offwidth thrutching of Boomerang Chimney to full back and footing up Manhatten Chimney. There were a few high ball boulder problem routes and a lot of mileage.
Self portrait near the top of Richards Sister, Severe, round the corner from the Marble Wall area.
I ground to a halt after the Crow Chin buttress having climbed 29 routes for a total of 249m of climbing. Tired. I'm pretty keen on the idea of working along the edge soloing everything easy but it might be the work of the lifetime, or at least a longtime.
Comfy climbing boots, cotton Echo pants (out next spring) and an Arrow half zip. Pefect for a windy cool day moving fast, ish on the grit. I don't like writing about product, but I was wearing them for the purpose I designed them for and they were really good. As a designer you can't ask for more than that..
