Thursday 19 January 2012

A fine weekend

After all the rain in recent weeks (months? - one day without rain in forty) it was nice to get some fine weather for once. With having done no climbing, not even on a climbing wall, I reckoned I was going to struggle after a handful of routes.

After a bit of ringing around I arranged with Simon to go out. We didn't have an early start but then with the clear nights and morning frost  time was needed for the rock to warm up, if possible. We decided on Robin Proctor's Scar - south facing and with the unbroken sunshine and no breeze it should be warm.

Mike and Gaz were already there and were on their second route by the time we arrived so it was a case of getting stuck in to the routes. We were worried that the rock would be cold on the fingers but it was actually really pleasant and we were mainly climbing in t-shirts! After four routes I was beginning to fade (I had though four would be my limit) and on the fifth my strength gave up midway through the crux so it was a jump off to get used to falling. I eventually followed it on a tight rope.

Mike on the crux of The Marshall Plan (F6c)

Unfortunately this attempt failed but he got it later.


By this time the sun was approaching the horizon and the temperature was dropping so it was time to go.

Sunday saw me heading out west again, this time with Cath to do some mountain biking near Kirkby Lonsdale. There was a route in the Yorkshire Dales South book that I hadn't done, though Cath had done it a couple of times. Parking up at the Devil's Bridge the first section was all on tarmac on the roads up towards Bull Pot Farm. All a bit of a lung buster, then we turned off the black-top and headed up a track.

The cold weather meant that there were occasionally patches of ice that meant it was on-off for a while on the track over to Bull Pot Farm. The track down to Barbondale was more of the same but rutted as well so all quite interesting. The bridleway back was somewhat muddy as the day had heated up a bit but there was still icy underneath so the riding was quite tricky even if the gradient was essentially flat.

Tea in Inglesport and then home for a clean up of the bikes and getting the fire lit after a good weekend.

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