We're going to Wales

Travelling up to the Lakes on Sunday morning tucking into a mega bacon,egg,haggiss,black pudding wrap and boom the phone goes.

Ay up boys, comes that north east twang. Cliffs face appears on the iPhone screen. Cliff Lowther of Roxcool http://www.roxcool.co.uk/

is about to be stung with a bit of Derbyshire humour. So, story starts during the week Cliff is invited to join us on a Lakes winter climbing trip. The meeting point is Seathwaite, what ever happens we will meet at Great End below central gully. 

So fun time.

Ay up Cliff, Ay up bud. Where are you, we're off to Wales, what. 

Long silence, Wales, yeh.

Iam about 30mins from Penrith, only joking.

See you in Keswick. Fun over, we meet in Keswick sort out what gear we are taking and split it between us.

Heading out from Seathwaite we start to gain height up into Grains Gill.

Pushing out from the farmstead into open fell, cliffs sporting his new Osprey ruck sack. For more detail contact osprey via the web site.

http://www.ospreyeurope.com/gb_en/

The pace is quick and strong, we're heading for one particular climb Dean and I have yet to climb. 

South East Gully is the target, Cliff has climbed this route before so it will be interesting to see if the route is leaner than previous years. The route is graded as (Lakes lll) 

Selfie time.

South East Gully is the route left of the main cleft in the crag called Central Gully, for obvious reasons. We stowed our gear and headed into South East Gully, we all soloed the first couple of sections as this was easy ground to cover and didn't warrant roping up.

The first section was my lead, super pitch with lots of mixed ground. Bulldogs,tomahawks,warthogs were in great demand on this route. Lakes winter climbing absorbs such items in great abundance, these pieces of kit are an absolute must in and lakes climber Arsenal.

Looking up the first section, easy ground, no major difficulties here.

Dean having a bit of banter with Cliff.

Looking back towards Sprinkling tarn.

I am belaying Cliff and Dean up in tandem. Easy pitch, nice even ground.

Deans moves off into the crux section of the route. This section is about fifteen feet of vertical shandeliered ice with a fairy rough broken back drop. The idea is slowly slowly softly softly, as the ice is pretty brittle in this section of the route.

Next up is me, iam on second and cliff is third. Deans up at the belay way out of site around 50metres away.

A short video of the crux section and me being fleeced out of two beers.

http://youtu.be/FJTRBkMv9GE

Time for a selfie.

Not far to the top know.

Cliff belays us out onto the summit were, yes another selfie is performed.

Then an axe selfie.

Topping out we headed back down to were we had stashed the gear, quick drink and something to eat and its onto the next route. Central gully left branch was our target, fantastic route with a super little ice pitch in the middle. We soloed the route for about two pitches, I lead the ice pitch and brought the guys up then Dean lead out to the top into fantastic Alps style panorama. 

We finished the day with a nice pint in the river side bar.

http://scafell.co.uk/

What a fantastic day, two routes completed both with there own individual styles.

A great day out with

http://www.peakathleteclimbing.co.uk/

http://www.roxcool.co.uk/

Chilly blue sky's and grippy grit.

Grippy grit it was, superb afternoon on Windgather rocks today. Headed out to Windgather on the Cheshire Derbyshire border just above the little village of Kettleshulme.

Arriving at the gate everywhere looked fairly quiet, couple of cars and the odd walker. Met a couple climbing who had been on the crag all day coming over from Wales.

Tom joins us as a picture taker and professional bystander.

We started off with a nice warm up climb, nothing to difficult. So warmed up we headed for mini multi pitch. Great route at the grade of Diff, decided to give John some experience at multi pitch routes. So I split the route in two with a hanging belay halfway up.

John arriving at pitch one ready to move on up.

John just about to set off on pitch two.

John loved the route and took the second pitch by storm. Then setting up a super belay from the top, he then belayed me up.

John just about to top out.

So, next lead is John's.

Setting off up a nice enclosed bookcase, classic. Super little sting in the tale at the top with a bit of a twist and giggle to exit.

John just about to move out right to exit.

So what a fantastic day on the crag. Fancy a day like this yourself, if so contact me on 

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Run B4 the rain

Rain won't catch me.

So quick run round the lake before tea, and before the rain comes in. Not been running since Norway, just not got back into it. So, big change back to normal.

Fantastic scenery to run under. Goyt valley Derbyshire.

Fantastic views across the lake.

Ringing Roger of Edale

What a fantastic start to the weekend. Guided to friends up onto Ringing Roger on Friday night in some testing conditions. We arrived in the car park at Edale to receive a good dose of heavy rain and gusting winds.

So head torches on we headed up into Edale village and past the Nags head pub.

 http://www.the-old-nags-head.co.uk/

Didn't look this bright when we passed.

So onwards and upwards. The point of the exercise was to gain better navigation skills at night for the guys, it was certainly going to be testing.

The wind was gusting at about 30-40 on the way up with thick fog at around 400m not without the driving rain just to add to the mix.

John and Tom on top of Ringing Roger, very happy with there combined efforts.

https://twitter.com/crevice_wind/status/700802255159746560

So, off too the top of Roger then back down the track to the famous Nags Head for a jug of ale.

Fantastic night out with lots of knowledge gained along the way, so until next time, which should be Friday 26th Feb. 

Keep watching.

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We went ICE (Isklatring) CLIMBING

Going to MÆL to have an adventure.

This is purely a video BLOG, enjoy.

http://youtu.be/lYR7yy3Oovo

STOP going up

We've stopped climbing upwards, the time has come to go down. We got up early this morning based on yesterday's recky trip of Bølgen. The walkin was steep and definitely back wood style, real thick it style tracking. Difficult ascent up through thicket and rocky river bed covered in vear glas.

Breaking trail, on and upwards. You need to move slow on these walk ins other wise you end up sweating then getting chilled when you arrive at the stance. The temperature was at -4 this morning so a bit lower than we've had during the week.

Difficult terrain to negotiate.

Just setting up for the first pitch.

Checking,Alls good ready to go.

Over the ramp up a steady slope then onto a near vertical section to the belay.

Looking back.

Dean has the second pitch, a lot steeper than it looks. When we got on it, it was just off vertical.

Dean just about to pop over the top onto a big run out to a back wall of ice. 

So, climb over. Lots of tat here, it's been a busy abseil stance.

At the stance.

Looking back towards the route, the abseil point is just set off to the right of the climb so I set up the belay then belay Dean across from his anchor point.

Looking back across the valley to the east.

After we get down, we go for a wander round town. The buildings are fantastic, the architecture is superb.

The old power station built in 1913, the film the SABOTURES was filmed here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heavy_Water_War

https://www.google.no/search?q=sabotures&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB590GB590&oq=sabotures&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.4665j0j4&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&hl=en-GB#imgrc=zf_xdGDBDQdQTM%3A

Watch the new film which was filmed in 2014 as this is the correct interpretation of what actually happened, not the incorrect version of 1965 which didn't give credit where credit was due.

The Hydo museum is well worth looking round, really interesting.

http://vemork.visitvemork.no/

So, it's been a fantastic week with some amazing climbs being completed.