Hiding in the bracken and immensely over grown Gardoms Edge. Wow, the recent weather has certainly made a difference to the landscape, its just exploded in vegetational growth.
Well as you will be well aware, you get chatting and things start to gather pace and before you know it your half way down the crag. Laughing out loud, here's me telling John try to stay away from walking under the crag as it's really hard going due to the large amount of boulders and low dense woodland. What did we end up doing, yep back tracking through the dense woodland. Oh well alls good, it's like a Druids wood at any moment a wizard or just some bonged up boulderers will appear.
First route, wow what a find. Rarely travelled I would say (Gardoms Gate VD) what an amazing route. Climb this all day long, super start with a nice run out to an overhang then a traverse round to the left with a super finish to the top.
Nice deep gear placement under the overhang for the traverse round.
Out from the overhang, traverse round and up to the belay stance.
Really enjoyed this route, not many people have been up this for a while as there was lots of vegetation on the way.
Route starts to the right then comes past the tree midway under the overhang then round and out.
The next route is johns lead. Corner crack Diff 10m, super route with a little crux moved in the middle over a small overhanging block.
Nice bit of flexing going on here.
Looking down Cave Gully from the top of Corner Crack.
Safety first.
Corner crack can be belayed from a tree or block belay about 15ft from the top, which is sensible when you arrive at this point. However the exit is over blocky terrain and very glass like grass. So, we ran it out as a second pitch with a sit/foot jam belay just to protect the last man up.
A slip here would have resulted in a trip in the blue light bus.
Next up, the VS sand bagger (Attraction VS 5a)
So, it's my lead. Had my eye on this route from the start. A real green vegetated route, not travelled often. The first section is a bit scarce for gear with a small wire for protection on the left of the bulging arête.
A side view, big blocky climb. Made the first rock over with ish ease. Certainly committing. So up to the next section, which from the ground looks easy ish. The next rock over is covered in lichen. Not much to grip onto here. The next move is a big push to a crimpy hold. All in all a super route, the route needs a good cleaning as it hasn't been climbed in a long time, so a brush will have to be taken up on the next lead. This route is one for the books, must admit didn't think it would be as good as it was.
