Sunday, December 07, 2008

Sheffield scramble.

With beautiful sunny weather and a slightly under the weather Daryl, we got out early on Saturday to have a go at Elbow ridge, a limestone diff route in a gorge in the Peaks.

DSCF2809
Route outline of traverse in red.

Its quite a strange little gorge type affair, with a road running through it and strange limestone cliffs and stacks running up the sides. Having driven past it an had a recce, it didn't look too bad at all, but with a cold night, the air and ground were frostly and the downward sloping rock was a touch slippery, making for an interesting bit of a climb.

Pitch one was the sketchiest for Daryl, as we'd roped up in a three but forgotten the rack, so only had slings for protection, which was not really any protection, at all!

DSCF2813

There was one crux move on this pitch, which would have resulted in a nasty fall if not careful, but Daryl got through it to a good belay and brought us both up nicely.
Then it was the start of the traverse, which was good fun, if not a bit undignified - the ridge is quite thin and its safest at some points to 'ride' it by straddling your legs either side for secure progress. Some of it was done on two legs, but there was a lot of unorthodox technique being employed!

DSCF2818

DSCF2820

DSCF2823

DSCF2833


We did this traverse in two pitches due to rope lengths and the moving in threes (which was a first for us and good practice), finishing up on a grassy ledge on the other side. After which, we avoided the v.diff continuation because of lack of gear, and scrambled up to one side of the Matterhorn Ridge, topping out for a photo and discussion of a thoroughly enjoyable route.

After getting down, it was off to lunch with the girls and hook up with Jim and Sarah, who'd come up from London on the train. After lots of pizza, the boys headed off to the Works bouldering wall, to embarrass ourselves and have some fun trying their routes. Its such a good wall, with loads of cool stuff, tea and all sorts. It very nearly got off to a bad start as paying on my card, a machine error nearly debited £65,000 of my account, rather than the £6.50 it should have been. Luckily avaided at the last mo! Price of climbing walls has gone through the roof!

DSCF2841

DSCF2846

DSCF2848






Anyway, we all had a good time and polished off a few nice routes before heading back to meet Rich, Anna and some more locals for food and Wii games at Jen's. All in all, I'm absolutely stuffed senseless!

DSCF2862

DSCF2806

Thanks for a wicked weekend and get well soon Dr Jen!!!!

2 comments:

Style Slave said...

awesome weekend, cheers for coming up everyone, glad we found some good outdoor climbing in the peaks. next time i'm nailing that set of blues on the overhang!

Jim Lundblad said...

Yeah Awsum, i reckon this should happen more often.