Grit times

This weekend saw my first trip to the peaks and the wonderful eastern grit, Me, most of the Denali 2012 team plus some others headed up for a weekend of fun. We arrived Late Friday night and were greeted by Nick at the hardhurst campsite, after pitching the tents we went straight for the pub for some much needed alcohol and food, we had to order takeaway from the local Chinese due to the pub not serving food at such a late hour but the pub were happy for it to be delivered there, we chatted for a while about routes we would try the next day before our food arrived, after food and a few more drinks we retired for the night. Saturday arrived early with a fog covered campsite, after some cremated sausages from Nick we decided to head to the pool cafe for a few fatty sandwiches, after polishing off these we headed for stanage, I spent most of the day ticking off HVS's with probably the best of the bunch being "Lancashire Wall", the highlight of the day was an impressive ascent of the E3 "Black Hawk Bastion" from Will, who seems to be crushing the routes lately and I'm sure it wont be to long before he is pushing the grade of E4. I really enjoyed Stanage and cant wait to go back, there are so many routes there that all look really good.
Saturday night we headed to the local pub again for some food and a little discussion on nexts years Denali trip, after a bit of chat Paul decided to introduce me to the yaga bomb, a nice little drink he said, I must admit it was nice but after three of them i had lost all feeling in my face and felt like i could take on the world, we had a great laugh and i really enjoyed it, the other guys headed of back to there tents around 22:00 but me and Paul were on it to the end, another few hours and many pints later we were flat out in the tent awaiting a massive hangover come morning.


Sunday arrived and luckily apart from a dry mouth and a smelly tent I didn't feel to bad, after getting our gear sorted and tents packed up we decided to head to Froggatt for the day, This was a pretty cool place with allot of slab climbing and not allot of gear, we climbed a few easy routes which were pretty cool, Phil managed to get himself stuck on the bold "Three pebble slab" which involved us lowering a rope down to him, the poor boy did get the piss ripped out of him but it wasn't long before i was in the same situation...


I also attempted the classic E1 "Strapiombante" but didn't quite manage it failing at the top out, Pretty disappointed with myself but I suppose it is something to go back for. The day did see Scott climb "Ragbag" a poorly protected E2 with a certain hospital ground fall, but with some nice climbing and nervous tugs he managed to scrape his way over the top. also Well done to Paul who also managed his first grit lead.


Overall a great weekend with lots of laughs, piss taking and good climbing, I'm really looking forward to another trip to the peaks.

early morning Peak

Phil on "The Tippler" E1 5b

Phil on "The Tippler" E1 5b

Phil on "The Tippler" E1 5b

Paul on "The Tippler" E1 5b

Paul on "The Tippler" E1 5b

scott on the bold "Ratbag" E2 5b



Will onsighting "Motorcade" E1 5a



Paul on "Heaver Wall"



Scott on "Ratbag"




Paul on "Heather wal
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Paul on "Heather wall"







Me on "Strapoiombante" E1 5b

 






Charlie on the fun line of "Todys wall" HVS 5a