Day 182 - The Mighty Stanage

stanage plantation

Rising early, driving 100 miles...only to be greeted by rain and midges...followed by fun climbs and a brief flirtation with Brad Pit!

Anna was keen to climb today, and as I've had more recent opportunities, I was happy to follow her lead.  We pondered where to go - weather forecasts were mixed and a little dubious...

The Mighty Stanage...God's Own Rock...one of the most iconic and famous crags in the world, it's always a tempting option...

We've been there once or twice, and found it high, hard, and intimidating.

It's a huge place - the gritstone edge is nearly 5km long, with at least a couple of thousand different climbs along its length.  The routes are generally longer than other peak crags, and the grades seem a bit more testing than at the smaller venues.

Being so long, Stanage (literally a contraction of Stone Edge) is divided into a number of sections.   For a long time, we've been meaning to visit the Plantation area...home to a number of world famous boulder problems, and a cool looking place with an atmosphere unlike the rest of the edge. 

It's quite a hike up to the climbing from the parking at the bottom of the valley.  I'd woken up tired and really not up for it, but determined to support Anna on whatever she wanted to climb...here, on the walk up the hill with a heavy bag, it shows a little:

are we there yet?

Within about a minute of taking this photo, it started to rain, and we rushed ahead into the woods...

can I just sit down for a bit?

As we waited, hoping that it was a simple brief, light shower, it set in to rain much harder, and didn't stop for 20 minutes or so.  

Being in the trees, we couldn't even see the crag, and decided that even if we were rained off for the day, we'd go up and take a look at some of the famous climbs there...Archangel, Goliath's Groove and Careless Torque, to name a few.  

There's also a very well known gritstone classic bouldering problem called Brad Pit.  It's a good name, Brad being very much a Yorkshire forename, and the problem itself being in a sort of pit, in...well, ya know, Yorkshire.

Anyway once the rain started to pass, we headed up to the crag.  The rock was sopping wet (I think they call it gopping wet round these parts), and very slippery, so we scrambled up to the top to check out the views.

damp

As it was so warm, the rock was drying quickly, so we decided to have a sandwich and then try a couple of routes.

What with all the waiting and the delays, we only had time for three routes...but they were all good!

First, Anna led an approachable looking Severe 3c, which we were amused to later find listed as a Hard Severe on the website...it really wasn't!

Then I lead the adjacent Hard Severe 4b, which probably was - it was a little bold, but fairly straightforward once committed to...

Then Anna led a longer, trickier Very Severe 5a...a brilliant, confident lead on her hardest climb of the year so far!

rock that

I joined her at the top and took a few snaps.

job done

We decided to try for a selfie...the midges were gathering at the base of the crag by this time, so I'd been forced to start covering up.  

negative hats

I'd heard phrases like "being eaten alive by midges", and knew that on a warm, humid day with light winds, they were liable to be a problem...but I'd never experienced it, and so didn't really believe...by this time though, they were starting to irritate and annoy.

Anyway, as I sat on the top, relishing the climbing afterglow, I suddenly spotted a familiar looking boulder just below us.

there he is!

All the other famous climbs I mentioned earlier are visibly distinctive and obvious, but Brad Pit being a pit, it's not so easy to spot, and we had no idea where it was...but there it is just below us (the dark area in the centre of the photo), 10m from where we'd been hanging around all afternoon! 

Of course Anna couldn't resist an opportunity to get her hands on Brad Pit.

dreamtime

It's such an iconic line, I couldn't resist getting my hands on him myself.

me vs brad pit

All I can say is...wow, that's hard!!

The next move from here is to put my left heel up on the shelf next to my left hand...and it doesn't get any easier from there!  To be fair, I wasn't going to even try it with no crash mat - look at the rocks underneath, that would be a nasty landing!

Anyway the problem is graded at V10, when the hardest I've climbed outdoors is V3, and that's hard enough...so I wasn't expecting to be able to do anything with Brad.

It was around 4pm by this time, and the midges were coming out to play in numbers.

In the 30 seconds that my bare foot was exposed after taking my climbing shoe off, and before putting a sock on, my right foot was bitten 20 times (as counted at home after a shower)...

Like I said at the top...rain, midges, a few good climbs and hands on with Brad Pit...

A day out at Stanage...always an adventure!

B-)