Diggory, Diggory Delvet

Look who we saw by the River Esk on the outskirts of Musselburgh! Out for a stroll on a fine Sunday evening, and this little fella had his nose in a hole next to the path. He was snuffling about and wiggling his tail, clearly looking for something interesting. He came out of one little hole and went snuffling into the next. As he did so, out of the first hole at breakneck speed came an enormous worm. No kidding, it was 7 inches long and of commensurate girth. And it was legging it.......as much as a legless creature can.

Diggory Delvet then snuffled out of the second hole and right onto the tarmac in front of us. He wasn't moving very fast and of course his tiny eyes meant he couldn't see much, but his little pink nose was twitching nineteen to the dozen. He didn't seem in the slightest bit scared by two giant omnivores standing over him, but sensibly he turned round and snuffled right back towards the exploratory digging he'd done on the side of the path.

Diggory, Diggory Delvet,
Little old man in black velvet.
He digs and he delves,
You can see for yourselves
The holes dug by Diggory Delvet.

from Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes, Beatrix Potter

More Snow!

I didn't think we could be so lucky as to have two decent-weather-days on consecutive weekends, but then it seems it is possible to get lucky after all! On Sunday we opted for a 12 mile trek through the snow which wouldn't (we hoped!) require the use of ironmongery. The hills on the south side of Loch Tay don't seem particularly appealing for most of the year, but in the low wintry sunshine and lots of snow they looked ethereal. The wind was biting (something we hadn't missed the previous weekend!) and hands were frozen solid within seconds of removing gloves. As a result, I felt better about not trying to go climbing. I would have been just too cold. Even the sheep looked cold here!

Cruach Ardrain

These pictures are for Caroline. While she's been shooting things in California, we were crashing through deep powder near Crianlarich. We didn't get to the top, running out of time and daylight (never mind energy) but we had a fabulous day. It's rare that we get to enjoy days like this in the hills when we're at work Monday to Friday. Yesterday was a delight, absolutely delicious. Wading back through the corrie was exhausting; every three steps one leg would disappear entirely into the snowy depths, usually to be eaten by the hidden but unfrozen bog beneath. Today I feel like I have been swimming in treacle. Everything hurts.

We found some potential bouldering spots just above the col between Cruach Ardrain and Stob Garbh. I'm not sure I'd want to haul my big mat all the way up there (except that it would be good training....er, for what?) but if I had my shoes and a wee brush it would definitely be worth a potter.

Team 2010

Tyndrum and Bridge of Orchy hills in the sunset

Cruach Ardrain in the background

Big Brothers: Ben More and Stob Binnein

Good bouldering in the summer? High enough to be cool and windy so maybe midge-free? Needs cleaning....

Guy in his element

Icicles. Amazing how much colder it was out of the sunshine

I don't usually make New Year resolutions, but this year I might make an exception and make a few (to make up for those years I haven't made any, maybe). One of these is to climb more. It's started well with a couple of trips to the wall already. I need to lose half an inch around my waist (which is more difficult for me than for many) and regain some self-respect with my climbing. There has been too much work and not enough play recently. That has to change. Might as well start now! Happy New Year.....

Sweaty September

I have foregone a holiday all summer on the basis that work has been very busy and the conditions in Font are better towards autumn. I was desperate for some time off, time away from the office and some long stints of fresh air.  I was also looking forward (with some trepidation, I must admit) to showing Tamsyn and Dina the joys of la foret domeniale de Fontainebleau and introducing them to real outdoor bouldering.

Tamsyn and Dina headed out on Saturday and I joined them on Monday, having had prior engagements on the Sunday. My journey was fine until I reached the French border, whereupon three plane-loads of passengers discovered that French Immigration Control were apparently "working to rule".  It took me just under 2 hours to have my passport checked, during which time there was a vague threat of a stampede, with Gallic tempers demonstrating their frayed edges very clearly. Just a little intimidating.....

Having hung on for better conditions but also been just desperate for a holiday, I had a twinge of mixed feelings on arrival in 30 degree heat. Lovely as it was, I knew it wouldn't be great for climbing anything hard!

With only really 4 days climbing to be had, we started at Isatis.  Being a little over excited about the whole Font experience (the last time I was here it snowed!) I just climbed anything and everything I laid eyes on that looked vaguely do-able.  I was a little freaked by the highball things, and even by the height of some things that are not considered highball, but then all the bouldering I've done elsewhere this summer has been pretty low. I figured I'd get used to it pretty quickly.

Isatis was warm. Oh how warm. Blissful in some senses, but frustrating and lethargy-inducing in others. While I revelled in being able to wander around without wearing a million layers, I quickly realised that the heat was going to put paid to any really hard problems. It's taken me a while to realise that the proverbial "bad conditions" does mean something.  Even at my level, the warmth and humidity means my skin doesn't last long, my fingers slide off things, my feet slide around inside my shoes and sweating with effort becomes gradually more unpleasant!

Dina and Tamsyn were new to the outdoor bouldering experience so I was glad the weather was good. I remembered that when I first started bouldering I didn't give two hoots about the whole "good conditions" thing. It didn't make any difference to my climbing, except that I hated being cold; it made me miserable and I couldn't climb anything for frozen fingers. Ah yes, pre-duvet days!

The warmth was good in some ways, and not in others. Dina wore through her fingers pretty quickly, and I think she was a bit shocked that these things do happen:

I think I just wasn't trying hard enough to wear through my skin as badly as this.  Without wishing to share too much, I wasn't particularly well for the last 4 days of our trip. Praise be for NHS24 and ERI's outpatient department who kindly issued me with some antibiotics at midnight on the Saturday I got home.

In spite of the heat, we mustered enough energy for a bit of dyno practice. From a sit start on this little arete, there was nothing else but a big jump for the top edge. Above is Dina, mid-fling. The hardest bit was sticking the top edge, especially with sweaty mits!

We spent one day at Diplodocus on the yellow circuit. Caroline and I did this 2 years ago, and I think it was the only circuit we completed properly: 39 easy problems and we were still knackered. This time was different, since my buddies had never done such things as circuits. It was good fun showing them the wee tricks I'd learned previously, and watching them work stuff out for themselves too. It was cooler at Diplodocus, and even started to spit a little, but we carried on regardless.

Dina's face is a real picture on this problem (number 8 yellow at Diplodocus I think). The prospect of slipping off this means hitting the big ledge on the way down; clearly this was a difficult thing for Dina to forget!

We had another day at 91.1, which was very warm too. In spite of this I found the red 6b in Stone Country's new Fontainebleau guide relatively straightforward. I think it's known as The Pince.  First pop was desperate. Slippy, crimpy, reachy...didn't really seem possible, but with a bit of perseverence (something I was distinctly lacking this week) it went. Stone Country's book is beautiful, by the way. Definitely worth a tenner. Small, light, good pics, nice honest commentary!

Our last day was spent at Rocher Guichot. I'd not been there before and was pleasantly surprised to find it close to the carpark but not crazily polished. We stopped at the first big boulder (which was pretty big!!!) and walked around it several times. Dina definitely didn't like the height; Tamsyn was pretty sanguine about it, but not overcome with eagerness; I was busy inventing reasons to myself why I should only climb half way up!  So we tootled around on some of the lower boulders to start with.

I thought the lower problems would be easier. Ha ha. There were a couple of very sketchy slabs, tiny crimps, and one giant rockover from the ground - standing start, heel up high, rock over and push hard, turn the hand round an balance precariously against a slab! Magic :-)  With a great deal of egging on from Tamsyn, I was persuaded to try a very sketchy blunt arete. Highball? Really? Oh I never noticed! I'm still not quite sure how I got up it, but I did. Tenuous, balancy, sweaty? All of the above, a definite adrenaline rush. Tamsyn - send me the pics!! Did you find your camera lead yet??

If there are Font lovers out there who haven't been to Rocher Guichot, I would definitely say it's worth a look. Plenty to keep you busy at least!

We found lots of big beetles here too. I couldn't resist taking pictures of them. I think they're fantastic wee beasties:

Four days was great - we climbed every day, but it's still not enough for me. When the weather is dry, it's fantastic. I feel like I've had my fix to last me a wee while, but never for long enough. So when can we go again??

Rehabilitation

No matter how many additional hours I do at work, it always feels like a treat to leave early, especially when the weather turns in my favour just at the right moment.

Martin agreed to pick me up at 4pm so I was anxiously watching the clouds all day. Between the time I left my desk and the time I reached the front of the building, the sun came out and there was blue sky! We headed out to North Berwick Law, where I still had my project, Law of Gravity, to go at. Martin has said on many occasions that he used to do reps on this route by way of training, so I reckoned that I might learn a thing or two from him.

Although it was still sunny when we got there, it chilled off pretty quickly by the time we'd warmed up. Martin went up and put the clips in, seemingly cruising the long reaches and waltzing past the finishing moves which I find so precarious. Even the crimpy start to the 7a+ version is considerably easier than the top 3 moves.

When he had reached the top, he lowered down to the highest big ledge (the one on the left that you stand on in order to reach the two undercuts for the top move). Then I said, can you see the tiny hole in the wall by your left knee? The response to this was "yes, but I don't fancy it for my foot". That's what I have to use for my left foot, because I can't reach the right hand sidepull/undercut.

I went up bolt to bolt next, and showed Martin my non-lank version at the top. I'm not sure whether I felt a sense of trepidation or vindication at his proclamation that clearly these moves are much harder for me than they are for him.

The next bit is for those of you who know this route well. If you don't, apologies, this bit is geeky and boring!


Here is a bit of a fuzzy image showing where my hands and feet go in order to reach the top. It's a bit too zoomed in to be clear. This is definitely the crux for me. I put my right foot on the big ledge(RF1) and lay back (as much as I can, given the hold is level with my face) off the big hole with my left hand (LH). With my right hand on the low ledge (RH) I have to out on my left toe in that tiny hole (LF) and pull my right foot up onto a tiny smeary chip (RF2)and then slap with painful precision for the top hold which everyone else uses as an undercut (RH2). If I catch it wrong, I'm off. After that, it's a simple step up and through with the left foot and reach for the top edge.

Pulling faces at the prospect of the crux on another previous redpoint (September 08)

So first time, all the moves felt very reachy, unusually so, so I shook out for ages at every opportunity (while Martin chilled off below! What a saint! Thanks Martin). I was surprised to find myself facing the top crux, never mind finding the energy to do it! I faffed around, started the move, backed off, started again, backed off again, feeling that my left foot and left hand were both very precarious. When I did go for it, I didn't catch the right hand properly, and gravity took over. I have to say, that would have been a good day if I'd left it there. It was a new high point.

A previous redpoint in September last year

But having a long rest, some magic dried fruit stuff that Martin offered me, a bit of a run around and I found myself in the same place on the second redpoint. Cool! I was in danger of repeating the faffing, but all the previous moves had felt easier this time: less reachy, less effort generally. Having tried to rush the crux moves to start with, I composed myself and tried again only to slip and scrabble to a recovery, hanging on only by fingertips and willpower! Phew. That was close!! A bit more composure and I just went for it, remembering that I didn't want to have to do the whole lot yet again!

Whoops of glee echoed round the small quarry, and fortunately only Martin to hear them. With hindsight probably a bit embarrassing to have made so much noise about a route that people used to lap, but it was something of an achievment for me, and after all, we climb for nobody but ourselves. A lovely evening, and some success to boot. It's nice to feel good on a route given my recent bout of apathy, nonchalence and gloom. Maybe this is the start of my climbing rehabilitation? Here's hoping....

Neilston: E2 or not E2?

Caroline and I headed for Neilston a couple of weeks ago. We'd seen the chat on Scottish climbs, and the new topo seemed to spur us on. Arguably it was a bit further from Edinburgh than we had anticipated, and much smaller than I had come to believe (having not looked at the topo myself - totally unprepared, me!). We followed numerous diversion signs, wondering exactly how far out into the wilds this wee place was, but eventually spotted the quarry with it's scary iron sentry. It's a delightul wee place.

Not quite the Eiffel Tower....

We've done a ton of sport and bouldering, and we both enjoy indoor climbing too, but trad is still a strange and mysterious world to us. So we started on HVS, neither of us ever having led HVS before. Why not? It looked ok. In fact it was very nice and pretty straightforward, much more so than I thought it would be. The climbing itself was fairly easy as far as we were concerned. We did both Punk Rock and Curved Crack at HVS 5a, placing as much gear as was humanly possible, just for the practice. Then we did Willie's Route, which is marked in the book as Severe, with an E2 6a variation. After much debate (see below) we followed this with a VS route to the right, unsure whether it was the VS 4c or the VS 4a....

Having admitted that we are not trad bunnies, we are slightly confused by Willie's Route and it's variation. Some friendly chaps there before us, who seemed to know the crag pretty well, said that the Severe went up the crack and then to the right of the grassy scoop. There's a good bit of gear in the back of the scoop, and the right hand option looked pretty easy and with lots of gear.

Always up for a challenge (!) we opted to go straight up the back of the scoop, and straight up the slab above. This fits the Lowland Outcrops description of the E2 6a variation as well as we thought it could, given the brevity of the description, but seemed pretty easy for E2! We thought E2 was meant to be Hard and Scary! We wondered whether the variation might have avoided the broken crack from the ground to the scoop and gone up the slab to the left of it, but that sounded more like the E3 between Willie's Route and Curved Crack - a proper scary-sounding route! Diff also rightly pointed out that in order to be a variation, the E2 option needs to share some parts in common with the original Severe option. Usually a "variation" shares the start, otherwise it's known as a "direct start", which would presumably share an upper part of the route.

Willie's Route (S) marked in red. The line we took (the E2 variation??) in yellow. Punk Rock (HVS 5a) in blue and Curved Crack (HVS 5a) in green.

There is no gear that we could find on the slab above the back of the scoop (along the yellow line above), even for side runners as suggested by Lowland Outcrops. Getting out of the scoop and onto the slab above wasn't a particularly hard move, either. The slab at the top was quite airy, I suppose, but nothing like balancing on the fairy sized ledges of any slab in Font!

So what is E2 6a supposed to feel like? Did we get the right route and it genuinely isn't as hard and scary as we had thought it would be? Or were we completely off route? We'd love to know, if only as guidance for what else we might try. Clearly routes of the same grade can vary enormously, but if this really was E2 we might try some other routes which previously we had written off. I hear warning voices in my head already not to get too cocky - pride comes before a fall, and all that - but maybe I should try things like Grasp the Nettle, Dead Ringer and Elgin's Crack. Caution has previously limited me to anything VS or below, which now seems a bit daft, especially given that on bolts I'm at least up for trying anything up to 7b (on a strong day!). Maybe I should be a bit more adventurous. It would certainly open up a whole new world of possibilities!

Chocolate coated star biscuits only from Gregg's in Barrhead. Yummy!

Out and About

It seems like forever and a day since I wrote the last blog post. So much has happened in the last year that I think I will still be reeling from the motion for another wee while. I thought I had found something that I wanted to do more than anything else, and that nothing would ever stop me choosing anything else over climbing (given the choice, of course) but I have been proved wrong. Life just takes over sometimes. There are lots of things to do in life. Making the decision what to do first is a dark art, that I am not convinced I will ever master.


So, despite the fact that I have a storage problem at home, stuff everywhere, a house to organise and a pile of filing, I went out climbing. Although my regular trips to the wall have dwindled significantly over the last 6 months, I've still managed to get outside whenever the decent weather (what decent weather??) has coincided with a weekend. This hasn't always meant climbing, but then better to be outside than in, no matter what you're doing.

Three of us trotted up Ben Venue in June, hoping to escape the late afternoon rain. As it was we got drenched, but it was fun anyway. The summer greens and the smell of wet bracken on the walk up was beautiful, and a huge relief from a stuffy office. We found a cute wee frog hiding in the grass too, and nearly got blown off the top.

Greenery and water - themes for Ben Venue

Rescuing the frog from thundering boots

Soon after that, I had a glorious walk up Beinn Iuthan Mhor with Andy. We walked from Dalmunzie House Hotel, up the glen running parallel to Glenshee. In fabulous hot sunshine and a warm breeze it didn't feel like the full 12 or 13 miles. It felt like real summer at last and it was nice to be able to enjoy it.

The view northwards, through the Lairig Ghru, from the top

Early in July we spent a day in Glen Clova. Another glorious day, with tops off, sunburnt shoulders and enough warm breeze to keep the midges quaking in fear underground. We were bouldering this time, with John Watson's new guide to Bouldering in Scotland. It's a beautiful book. At first I thought it might be disappointing because there appeared to be so much rock to climb, but so little of it was documented in the book. But I changed my mind about that, instead finding it pretty inspiring to look at, run around like a nutter and invent my own things to climb. We found a few things first, and then realised they were written up in the book.

Caroline on a nice little vertical crimp-fest

In fact we spent pretty much all day on the Peel Boulder. With Andrea's technique, my slightly foolhardy bravery and Caroline's strength we managed between us to work out the sequence on the Peel Sessions. Given that it was a joint effort I don't think we can claim the Font 6c+ tick! I managed to complete it from standing, but couldn't touch the sit start for love nor money. Andrea cruised the sit start but (probably sensibly) withdrew gracefully from the mad scary top out moves. Caroline too opted to come down rather than go up, as is her wont (ask her about retreating from the highball problem at Bas Cuvier). Instead she proved that her daily trips to the wall are worth it by cruising a tough move to pull from the ground, over the lip of a small roof and onto the slab above.

Diff had some work to do further north so we headed to Inverness for the weekend. The weather looked very flaky for the Saturday so I stayed home with friends, hung out in the garden, played with train sets and watched Cbeebies. It turned out to be sunny where I was and rainy where Diff was. Ah well. On the Sunday we headed south via Huntley's Cave.

Thinking it would probably be running with water our expectations were low. It's a lovely spot, although not ideal for Scottish summer climbing, being down in a gully, by the river and surrounded by trees. Prime midge country, and probably not a quick-dry location, but very pretty. We had Diff's original Highland Outcrops guide which resulted in some interesting route-finding. We also had minimal gear and only one cam! We started on the classic Cave Route, and then moved on the Diagonal (accidentally finishing up the last 3 moves of Cave Route). By the time I was half way up Slot Direct, it was raining. I didn't realise this until I looked down to see Diff with the rope tarpaulin over his head; I was bone dry under the roof of the slot. Good job I did look down, because the top holds were pretty wet and a bit slippy by the time I got to them. Despite not doing much, we discovered it was a good place to go back to. The chippy in Grantown was very nice too!

Somehow in amongst all this I have managed to unpack most of the boxes from our move. What I haven't managed to do is put the contents of the boxes anywhere other than the floor....

Photo Opportunity

The only reason for this post is to share this photograph, taken at the top of Ben Venue the weekend before last. A classic "we're not ready yet!" photograph.

We escaped the torrential rain for most of the day, but it caught up with us on the way down. We were relieved we hadn't opted for a day's climbing. All the gear would have got wet, and we'd have had a frustrating day not getting anything done.

Apologies for the sock display. I was saving the hems of my Best Climbing Trousers from the bog.....

Dovehole Boulders

Saturday was set to be good weather-wise, and for once the forecast was right! It was warm (for February!) and the sun looked promising so Caroline, Andrea and I headed for Northumberland. We all agreed that so often we find climbing in winter so difficult because all three of us get so cold so quickly. Whether this is an unfortunate consequence of our lean, ripped physiques and low body fat, or just because we are girlie wusses, I'll leave you to decide, but Saturday was set to be a perfect temperature for us. Having been to Kyloe so often, Andrea suggested Dovehole.

For some unknown reason I appeared to have removed the road atlas from the car (strange, since we came to rely so heavily on such precious items while we were on the Continent) so we struggled a little with the directions in the Northumberland Bouldering Guide. For those of you who know this wonderful tome, I'm sure you will appreciate the cartographic challenges faced by its valiant authors. More by luck than our expert map reading skills, and maybe because the road atlas was sending us good vibes from it's hiding place under the front seat, we happened upon the Dovehole Boulders peeking out from behind the trees a little way up the hillside. It was a lovely spot, sheltered from most of the wind, and with a lovely view of the Cheviots.

Our first task was to eat. So we sat on the mats and munched our way through various chocoate biscuits, cookies, sardines, coffee, juice and breadsticks, before finding a slightly damp traverse to fall off.

First things first: food!

We started on boulder number one and discovered an interesting and particularly challenging B2 traverse. This was the first time Caroline and I had been bouldering outdoors since September, so it took us a while to work things out.




Following the problems round the boulder in an anti-clockwise direction, the next one was very different from the fingery traverse. A big slappy reach for a rounded lump, followed by a heel hook, turning to a high rockover, and a looooong reach back for some nothingness, left two of us very chuffed to flash it, and one frustrated that she could only do it when nobody was looking!

Caroline getting the heel hook

Depending on which way the boulder was facing, we discovered that some problems were too damp to try. There were some very worn patches too, and we tentatively attempted some of these, our efforts tinged with a mite of guilt at the additional erosion we would undoubtedly be causing just by putting feet on rock.

Our last problem didn't take as long as we thought it would, and our perseverance was rewarded with a proper top out on a Font-height boulder. Wicked! Unfortunately, in our excitement we forgot to take any pictures of it!

We didn't race around and do a huge number of problems; we didn't even do anything especially hard. But just being outside again was fantastic. Circumstances are such that it isn't always possible to spend every day of every weekend outdoors and climbing (although there are many people who seem to achieve that!). For me, the start of the year has been busy, and I have had things other than climbing occupying my time and energy.

Frustrating as this is, I'm not climbing well at the moment anyway so some time out is probably of great benefit. I read with interest extracts from Chris Sharma's journal, written for Climbing magazine. If great climbers like Sharma sometimes feel as though they don't care if they never climb again, maybe it's ok for me to take a wee break from training and pushing my limits while I do other things. Maybe "me and my climbing" have reached the mature stage of our relationship! Climbing indoors is not inspiring me at the moment; I'm finding it hard to muster the enthusiasm to pull hard. Climbing outdoors is currently restricted by office hours and weather, which frequently conspire to limit my opportunities. This weekend's jaunt to the County has most definitely improved my psyche. I hope it will keep me going a bit longer and allow to me focus on other things without going slowly mad.

Trip Photographs

I have already written here about how busy life is now that we are back from our trip. So many things to do, and not enough time to do them all! This explains why it has taken me so long to get around to putting my photographs online. I suspect that most readers won't be particularly interested in seeing my holiday snaps, so this post is specifically aimed at friends and family. Be warned, though. In posting photographs here, you have been spared the tedium of flicking through the 1700-odd photographs we took between us!

Speaking of photographs, I was given the most wonderful present last week: a hardback book containing photographs of our trip and quotations from this blog. I understand that it was produced with the wonders of a Mac Powerbook, and a little piece of software called iPhoto. With the magic of digital cameras, it is so easy to take hundreds of pictures that one might never look at again. But to have them, even just a select few, in a book means that I am much more likely to flick through it to remind myself of time well spent. It struck me the other night, that this would be pretty high on my list of "what to rescue if the house was burning down", and might even be my Luxury on my Desert Island. Thank you!

On the road	Fontainbleau Bouldering
Orpierre	Tautavel
Barcelona	Siurana & Torello
Costa Blanca	Travelling Home

950 Hours of Climbing

Our Great Escape is now imminent. I can't quite believe it. Having said to so many people that 2007 would see a big change for me, I didn't actually know what I was going to do, where, who with or how..... Then earlier this year Caroline idly asked if I wanted to go to Australia with her this summer. The conversation went something like this:

Caroline: I don't suppose you want to come to Australia with me for 4 weeks this summer?
Me: Hmm... nice, but I can't really take 4 weeks off work at once.
Caroline: Ah well.
Me: You could climb your way round Australia. That would be cool.
Caroline: Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.
Me: Does it have to be Australia?
Caroline: No.
Me: Does it have to be the summer?
Caroline: No. I was going to quit my job anyway.
Me: No way.
Caroline: Yes way......Why?
Me: I was going to do that too.
Caroline: No way.
Me: Yes way.
[stop breathing]
[long pause]
Me: [remembering to breathe] Why don't we quit and go climbing?
Caroline: Cool! Let's do it!
[collective giggle]

In the ensuing 20 minutes of babble we managed to work something out. Finances are sorted, work is on hold, our disbelief is nearly suspended.... So, we have 950 hours of climbing ahead of us. This may seem trivial to some, but for us it is well outside our comfort zones. We should have done it years ago, but such are circumstances that we didn't. We didn't even know each other until about 10 months ago!

Having spent 6 months concentrating on logistics, maybe it's about time to think about some climbing objectives! We have a nominal goal of 7c (or 7a!) by Christmas, depending whether we're feeling cocky or realistic. Other than that, the list looks like this:

• climb
• do some yoga
• onsight F7a
• get strong
• climb more
  
• work on the tan
• climb even more

It seems a bit limited. No doubt things will fall into place, as they appear to have done so far. All suggestions welcome, although we can't guarantee to give each one full and serious consideration!

Nothumberland Jungle

Continuing our exploration of various corners of Northumberland, today Diff and I went to Raven's Crag. It was one of those that I hadn't even noticed in the guidebook until very recently, but on closer reading looked very promising. It's only a stone's throw from Bowden Doors, an ideal place to sneak away to if Bowden is busy or if you just fancy a bit of space to yourself.

Raven's Crag

We went armed with my new bouldering mat (which looked very shiny and a bit out of place at the crag) and a stash of food, intending to check out some new problems, test the mat's suitability for use as a comfortable chill out mat, and do a taste-test comparison of Sainsbury's Jaffa Cakes with McVities originals. As far as those goals are concerned, our day was very successful.

Gav in the office with my new mat. Amazing how much hilarity it caused.

Raven's Crag is so close to Bowden and yet appears to be little known, and little climbed judging by the vast quantities of small, slow-growing flora attached to the rock. There is oodles of rock there. It's as long as Bowden, and with (very almost) as much to climb. The only thing to add is that the grades are slightly easier than Bowden; there appear to be fewer very hard problems, but lots of challenging things in low to mid grades.

Our first problem, on the Pinnacle, freaked us a bit because it was so green. But we managed it...somehow! The relief in Diff's voice when the words "Ah, jugs!" floated down was heartfelt! We then moved further up and along to discover possibly the sandiest wall in the whole of Northumberland. It looked as though it might have been climbed too much, but it would have taken a highly systematic, military operation by an army of climbers to wear the skin of the sandstone away in such an even fashion to expose the sandy beach-ness underneath. We reasoned this wasn't the work of over-zealous climbers but rather of an over-zealous wind.

We continued our jungle adventure to an overhanging traverse with some very sharp holds on it, and a scary-monster-hidey-hole pocket at the finish. I think that went at about 5c. First time all through, I fell off the last move because the monster in the pocket bit me. That's my excuse, anyway.

Moving from here to the Meadow Wall area was a battle. Ray Mears would have been impressed (or not!) with our bushwhacking techniques. Given that we were lacking an essential piece of kit (a machete) I think we managed very well to get there, climb and get out alive. Goodness only know what was hiding under all that bracken. We could easily have been eaten by monsters or rabbits. (For those who don't know, the monsters hide in the little pockety holes in the rock, and come out to eat you when you put your little pixie fingers in there to climb a problem. Lank versus Pixie? On balance I think the Pixie has a greater number of hazards to negotiate...but then, being a Pixie, I would say that!)

Exporing the Northumberland Jungle

Eventually we found an area which was mercifully bracken free (relatively speaking) so having climbed some pretty highball problems with exciting slopey topouts, we opted to do the Jaffa Cake taste test here. We have concluded that in the overall rankings, Spar Jaffa Cakes are superior to both Sainsbury's (which came second) and McVities (which took last place).

Tasting jaffa cakes is a serious business...

This was a lovely spot, very secluded and with lots to climb.

My camera is very slow to react, which is why I missed the really good picture of Diff on this highball problem with a slopey topout. He moved. But I guess that's what climbers do!

The guidebook was a bit confusing, so we muddled through some of the problems next to each other, and did them Our Way. It was much easier to not worry about what the book said. Why do things by the book, anyway? There were lots of tenuous and sketchy moves off slopers very high up, and some pretty good dismounts (well, we needed to test the mat out properly. We can confirm it does the job very nicely.) There was a lovely slab, and an easy problem with some fantastic jugs at the top right where we wanted them. I also almost got my come-uppance when cockily I decided I could climbg a jamming crack graded "5a more difficult than it looks" (Dead Tree Crack, maybe?). Yeah, that looks ok, I thought. Uh-uhhh.... having reached the big ledge half way up and jammed half my body into the upper half of the crack, I thought I might stay there for a while since it was more comfortable than trying to move out of the crack. I felt pretty stupid for being so cocky. Pride comes before a fall.... fortunately, I didn't fall. I escaped left and did the topout to the 5c problem next to it!

Sketchy slab, but lots of fun

Scary topout photo...after the slab

Raven's Crag is definitely a good place to return to. It's a superb venue for a fun day's climbing; although the grades aren't high, the problems aren't all as straightforward as the grades might suggest. It is evidently an under-visited crag, but I can't see why. It's lovely. A Friday Crag maybe.