My arrival in Yorkshire coincided with a lovely sunny evening so I headed up to Crookrise with Rich and his brother Jim. Rich started well by leading a HVS* and a Severe at the same time, he decided that this warranted a VS grade, I had trouble disputing his argument. Anyway, nice climbing on a sunny slab with the added safety of a top rope, who was I to complain. (*I've just checked and it's VS in my guidebooks, still, would probably be E1 in the Peak).
Jim's lead next, he's fairly new to leading but he's got a better approach than I have, didn't seemed apprehensive at all, just got on with it. He led another nice slab over to the right. My turn and I already had my route in mind, I dragged the other two over to the other end of the crag so I could crack on. I'd been thinking about this route for a while (the Crease VS 5a) - it always looks nice in photos. I'm not sure what happened but I think I'd talked myself out of it before we even got there. Looking at the hard hand traverse around a rib, I decided I'd give Rich another chance to impress his brother and let him lead. Rich has bouldered the direct start (6a) in the past so decided to do this. Unfortunately for him, it was not to be today, we retired for the evening.
Mid afternoon the next day and all business was complete, funnily enough, Rich had finished for the day and had the next day off, we pack his stuff (and his wife Anna) and headed over to the Lakes. Evening in the Lakes brought rain and scuffed plans for some light cragging on arrival, we settled for a few pints in the Old Dungeon Ghyll and made plans for the morning which included an early start, two crags and me getting away in good time to get back to our Scottish Hostel.
Rich cancelled my early alarm call because the rain continued all night, I already knew it rained most of the night as it sounded like someone was throwing handfuls of gravel at van for most of it.
The rain slowly lifted, after a leisurely breakfast we headed up to Middlefell Buttress to see if it was dry. We were pretty well equipped for a wet weather day for once, we had waterproofs and scrambling guides so we knew we could get something done at least. The rock didn't seem too bad, we decided we'd use it for big boot practice and set off.
It was good fun, I definitely prefer my rock boots, I just didn't trust my feet as much in big boots on the wet rock and you over-compensate with your arms. The sun was definitely shining on Rich, literally, whereas it seemed to be actively raining whenever I was climbing. We even managed a bit of alpine style moving together and continued up Curtain Wall. The worst bit was the descent, we (Rich) missed the nice path and we ended up scrambling down what can only be described as a waterfall.
The photos are courtesy of Mr Lound as Dylan has decided to eat through my camera lead. Good puppy.
--Matt
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