Since my exams finished on Friday I have managed to get 3 nice days out on rock, visiting 7 different crags and climbing lots of routes and problems. These, especially sunday, have to rank among any winter day Ive had.
Saturday saw Sinclair Cooper and I going to Northumberland. We met Roberty Taylor, Claire Holland, Anne Peale and Suzy Howat there too. We began the day at Kyloe Crag. It was a lovely day and the crag was very busy as a consequence. I didn't climb anything particulalry spectacular, although I did solo 3 nice HVS's, including Devils Edge. Sinclair and I decided we were having bait of a failure of a day here so we should move to another crag. Neither of us had been to Ravens Crag before, despite it being directly below Bowden Doors. We had abit of an explore around but everything was very sandy and dirty so we walked up the hill to Bowden Doors. We didn't manage to do very much here despite trying quite hard on a problem in the cave area.
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| Bowden |
On Sunday I was to climb with Anne and Sinclair. The plan was to head to Dunkeld for some sport but the weather seemed to be favouring Northumberland again. We went to Hepburn, another crag none of us had been to before. On the way there we drove down a really fun road which I even managed to get a little bit of air on. I didn't mean to ofcourse but the hill was slightly more pointy than I expected. Hepburn feels alot more gritty than other county crags, possibly due to its slightly more southern position. I havent visted enough crags to get a good idea of the stratigraphy yet. We spent a long time trying problems on a steep boulder, but none of us managed to tick them. I would usually be able to climb font6b within the first 5 attempts but not today apparently.
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| (Photo Credit: Anne Peale) |
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| (Photo Credit: Anne Peale) |
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| Little Pixies, Back Bowden (Photo Credit: Anne Peale) |
We were all getting a little annoyed with oursleves so we went to Back Bowden. Here Anne managed to climb her first font 7a, Under the Spell. Im not trying to take anything away from here fine effort but its probably very soft for font 7a. We finished off the day bouldering around in our trainers. On the way back to the car we saw some nice lenticular clouds.
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| Bouldering in trainers (Photo Credit: Anne Peale) |
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| Cool clouds at Back Bowden |
The weather was so nice I thought it would be a shame to just go home so we went to Lindisfarne instead. It was supposed to be high tide a 22:55 so we had about 2 hours to explore the island. We took in the main attraction sof the castle, it was locked though, and the priory before heading back to the car as the tide was starting to get up to the road. This was quite a perfect cragging day for me. Good friends, good climbing, good weather and then something abit different to finish the day.
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| Lindisfarne Castle at Dusk (Photo Credit: Anne Peale) |
Yesterday I went climbing in the central belt with Philip Curry. We started the day at Rosyth. Philip hasn't climbed much outside before so I led everything. I began with climbing The Waullie, a route I haven't done in a long time, then Sickle and Chemical Warfare, which are new to me. After these we relocated to Aberdour. The crag was quite quiet when we arrived but began to fill up later. We climbed Asinine, Toerag Wall Direct Start, Hallelujah Wall and Slack Alice. It was nice to chat with all the other climbers here as I usually only climb at Aberdour in the rain so just have it to myself. It was nice to climb with Philip too. We managed to do everything very efficiently and quickly.
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| Slack Alice at Aberdour (Photo Credit: Philip Curry) |
Sorry about the essay. This should be 3 seperate posts really.
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