Day 91 - Bold and Interesting

afterglow

Great day today...we broke some new ground, and had some cool adventures in the process!

My main man and long time partner in crime, Agent Jezz (long story - which isn't to say that it's interesting, or otherwise worth repeating) came up to spend the night at Chez Balogne (as he's always referred to it), with the aim of getting out for a climb today, weather permitting.  

We felt it might be foggy in the Peak, so we figured we'd give Symond's Yat a shot.

It's an amazing crag, steep limestone buttresses soaring high above the river in the Wye Valley - a stunning place.

However, the rock is highly polished in places, where hundreds of outdoor groups have scuffed and scraped their way up the easier climbs, such that they've become smooth and slippery (somewhat inconveniently), in exactly the places you need to be able to grip. 

There is lots of vegetation on the cliff faces - trees, grass and a variety of greenery...and the associated mud it grows in, of course.

There's a lot of loose rock, too, to catch out the inattentive climber.

And if you paddle past it in a canoe, as we did last summer (do you see what we did last Summer?) it looks tall, steeper than vertical, and markedly intimidating...in fact, it looks scary as all hell...

Consequently, although we've had the local climbing guidebook for some time, we've kept just not quite getting around to going to climb there. 

But today, because of various time constraints, at both ends of the day, it was the only sensible choice.

As it turned out, we found a quiet buttress with some un-polished rock, and had a great time!

It wasn't even the buttress we were looking for - in fact it was radically different...but we saw some easy(ish!) climbs that we fancied, and they proved to be adventurous, fun and interesting.  

Interesting is climbing book jargon for "challenging and scary", a satisfying combination - afterwards, at least!

Here's Anna high up on a fairly bold (dangerous and scary), interesting (see above) climb.   

now for the tricky bit

It was quite a low grade of climb, VDiff (see this post for background on grading and the VDiff grade in particular).   But it was a high end VDiff, with very little protection and a hard, high crux (the most difficult part of a climb).

Top quality lead from Anna, for her first Trad lead of the year.  Go, babe! ;-)

Of course, this was our first Trad climb of the year, as well as our first climb at the Yat...nice couple of little psychological barriers broken there. 

Sweet! B-)

Anyway, I really like the picture at the top.  This was at the end of the day, at the top of the final climb...Anna and Jezz were sharing their experiences over a well-earned cheese butty, in a gorgeous setting looking away up the beautiful Wye Valley, with the low afternoon sun just about keeping some warmth in the air.

The post-climb vibe is always very special.  There's a sense of accomplishment, and the attendant satisfaction.  Often there's a physical heaviness - tired, warm muscles at last allowed to rest, as both mind and body relax and unwind from the mildly extreme physical and psychological pressure they've endured for the previous few hours.  There's a strong camaraderie between fellow adventurers...we've had each others lives in our hands, looked out for each other, supported and encouraged each other, and kept each other safe.

It's a lovely, mellow, bonding moment, and as was noted around the time of this photo:

We all survived...

We all got to the top...

We lost no gear...

We have cheese...

This is a good day!

:-)