Curbar

A sunny day's climbing in the Peak District at Curbar Edge on Saturday. This is another of those crags that I visited a few times in the early 1980s but have  not been to since.

Despite delaying getting on to the crag by having a cup of tea in Haversage the sun still hadn't got on to all the crag when we arrived. A few easy warm ups then Mike had a go at Green Crack. I struggled on this but inverted laybacks aren't my forte!

My jamming skills seem to have deserted me and I struggled on the next route, Inch Crack, which is nearer to four inches wide. Another couple of routes and the "Cloggy of the Peak" was getting the better of me. Mike and Gaz did another route before we called it a day and headed home. We didn't do anything hard but it was nice to be out on the rock on such a lovely day.

Sunday we'd decided to get the garden in to shape for winter as there's unlikely to be another opportunity to work with dry soil.

Today was the first day of autumn when I've had to wear long leggins when biking in to work. In fact it was cool enough to need them on the way home as well. I've not biked much this week as the weather has been decidedly autumnal and wild. There's the Christmas Cracker sportive coming up in a few weeks so  I need to get some miles in on the bike before then.

Going downhill?

A good commuting week last week - biked in four days out of five. OK, it's only five miles each way but it's almost as quick as driving. Got wet on Friday going home, actually got very wet, if I'd left it for another half hour it would have almost been dry.

Saturday saw Gaz and myself at Standing Stones in the Chew Valley, a crag I'd never been to before. In fact I've done very little climbing in the Chew Valley even though Cath is from Saddleworth and I've spent a lot of time in the area. Despite the good forecast it began to drizzle as we got to the crag so we decided to stick to lower grade routes and see how the day went. Gaz had been before and had a couple of routes in mind, however by the time he got to the top of our first route, a VS, it was raining pretty persistently so seconding was "fun". Another couple of teams turned up but decided to head elsewhere so we had the crag to ourselves for the rest of the day.

After waiting a while for the rain to pass we ended up doing another four routes, nothing hard but good climbing nonetheless and jamming uses different muscle groups to face climbing so it all felt a bit different.

Sunday could have been the Roses Round but I got laid low by a cold on Saturday night and spent most of the day (and Monday) in bed feeling sorry for myself. No idea where I picked it up from but it didn't follow my usual "cold sequence" and came on very suddenly. Slowly getting back to normal.

Something New, Something Blue

It's rare these days for me to visit a new crag especially one closish to home and not some scruffy over-hyped recent discovery but I'd never been to the Bridestones nr Hebden Bridge. Mike was quite shocked about this, it's one of his favourite venues. Perhaps the answer is that I've never really been in to bouldering. The main reason for this has been that in the day before bouldering mats the regular jumping off played havoc with my knees, more recently my knees have been bad enough that even with mats that I haven't been keen to participate.

Heading over to the crag things didn't look promising, all the roads were damp to wet but by the time we pulled through Blackshaw Head things were a bit drier. Mike was waiting by the path to the boulders, actually more of a small edge than a set of boulders. A short walk and we are at the first of the rocks with a couple of walkers enquiring about our bouldering mats. There is already a small group at play, the climbable faces are out of the wind but there is little sunshine.

A few easy problems as warm up then on to more serious stuff. The rock is strange, the surface is covered in a patina of small grit particles that no matter how much (soft) brushing you do, it always feels like you are standing on ball bearings. Most handholds are sloping, very sloping, and the technique to use them along with the associated footwork takes some getting used to.

Not long after we had arrived, a familiar face appeared - Dave Birkett and his wife Mary. "Got any good jokes?" he asked, "my climbing!" - at least I got that answer in before Mike or Steve! It's always impressive to watch really good climbers in action, they just make everything look so easy and smooth, a bit depressing sometimes though.

Time to move on and we headed to the part of the crag nearest the pub, to an area called Big Brother, Little Sister (or maybe the other way round). Trying one problem here, my fingers slipped in a pocket and I felt a searing pain shoot up my forearm - a pulled tendon. I tried one or two more problems as we worked our way back along the rocks but tried to avoid using my left hand. By now it was nearing sunset and getting quite dark so time to call it a day.

The following day my finger (and arm) were still painful so no climbing. Instead I decided to head off for a bike ride as it's only two weeks to the Christmas Cracker sportive and I need the practice. Heading in to Skipton I was cycling in to a thin strong northerly breeze which made the going a bit harder than I would have liked. In fact heading from Skipton to Rylestone seemed to take forever, whether it was the breeze in my face or the rough road surface or my lack of bike fitness I don't know but I was glad to turn and head through Hetton and on to Airton and Otterburn. Fortunately most of my route didn't involve sustained braking so I could keep my injured finger out of the way. I got home just outside the two hour mark for thirty miles. While not particularly impressive, at least I didn't feel too tired but I don't think I'll be breaking four hours for just under double the distance. I'll need to do another slightly longer ride next weekend, maybe forty five miles, as well then I should be set.