A fter the hugely successful trip to the Peak District in January of 2009, Ollie and I decided to do a similar trip this year. It began on the night of Friday 22 when, after carb loading at Dalyell Road, we hit the road heading towards the grit...
Leaving London proved a bit tricky, with a combination of Ollie’s car cutting out and bad traffic, but needless to say we were soon speeding up the M1 Northbound.
Arriving at Calver, home of the famous Outside shop and cafe, at a decent time of 11.30pm we pulled up in a lay-by and prepared to spend the night in the back of Ollie’s car. He’d already made preparations by putting the back seats down and using 2 bouldering mats as a make shift mattress. It was fairly comfortable, if not a little cold at 4am but being the stingy climbers we are it saved campsite money!
The following day (Sat 23) began with porridge and a trip to the Outside cafe to give the crags a bit of time to dry. It had rained on the journey up the previous night, but the weather looked promising with the cloud cover breaking every so often. After perusing the guide book we decided to head to the exposed High Neb Buttress of Stanage, hoping that it would have dried out. We parked up at Dennis Knoll and set off up to the crag. One big surprise was the amount of snow still up there; all the approaches involved trudging through sometimes thigh deep snow! Nevertheless we struggled to the base of the crag and geared up. By this time the sun was trying it’s best to poke out, and as it was absolutely baltic up there the warming rays of the sun were very welcome!
I started off with the classic High Neb Buttress, which goes at VS 4c, and was a good re-introduction to the grit style. Scrambling down the descent described as ‘awkward’ in the guide proved, well... awkward as it was full of slime and involved jumping into the snow at the bottom, which in climbing boots was pretty cold! Hands were warmed, more layers were put on and cream egg supplies were consumed before Ollie launched himself at High Neb Edge, a fingery HSV 5c. After a few attempts at the first moves, he pulled his way onto the arête and got some gear in. Slab padding above led to another successful ascent of the day.
We then moved on to try some climbs on Count’s Buttress and then Outlook Buttress but both area’s were still seeping and covered in snow so we decided to finish off the day with some bouldering. We both sent Crescent Arete, a 5b V2, which is described in the guide as a “superb elegant arête”, before moving onto the classic Not to be Taken Away, which goes at 6a V4. I got this after falling off the first moves a few times, although the top half was pretty scary! We then chose to call it a day and retired to the Grouse Inn for food and beer. The Steak Pie is highly recommended!
After spending another (less comfortable) night in Ollie’s car we were rudely awoken when a coach full of 10 year old kids pulled up and started piling out into the lay-by! They were off orienteering in the area. We swiftly packed up and tried to cook some porridge however the stove broke. Sadly the only remaining option was to head down to the Outside cafe again for a full english.
Reinvigorated with bacon and eggs we headed to Froggatt to get on Valkyrie, a HVS 5a classic. It was even colder than the previous day and the first jamming pitch saw Ollie reduced to tears as his hands turned blue! After 10 mins blood returned, tears were dried and he was able to continue to the belay. I climbed up and led the 2nd pitch, which after much swearing and gibbering over the tricky mantle finally succumbed. A classic grit route done in awful style but still good fun!
We followed it up with the more straightforward Trapeze Direct, a soft VS 4c. Ollie then launched up the classic Chequers Buttress, HVS 5a, in brilliant style, bringing to a close an awesome trip.
There was time for one last trip to the Outside cafe before hitting the road back to London. Another superb Peak District trip, with some classic problems ticked. Cheers to Ollie for driving!
By Martin Davies
