From Bowderstone to April...

F*ck me, I've not been on here for ages.

Since getting back from the lakes, i have been to: Froggatt with Ellie Boylan; went bouldering at Stanage Plantation with Jonny Davis; went exploring new problems on Cown Edge Rocks with Adam Bridges and had an evening at Hobson Moor Quarry with the Wednesday gang (DanDan, Hugh, Gareth, Lindsey and occasionally Dave, Ben and Caroline aswell).

Firstly, my trip to Froggatt with Ellie. It started at Chinley train station (as most of my trips do) at 9:12AM this time, for the train to Hathersage, where I met Ellie Boylan for the first time on the train. I had arranged to meet her through www.red-tips.com, we decided she would get on at Hathersage, and find me on the train, where we would both depard at the next stop, Bamford. That all worked a treat, so up the hill we went, with rucksacks on our backs, through the trees, and finally over the road to the crag. We started off with me leading 'Trapeze' (VDiff), and whilst sat on top, belaying Ellie up, i decided that i we would do no more leading as it was just too cold and windy up the top. So i dropped a top rope down 'Long John's Slab' which goes at E3 5c, i, much to my surprise, flashed that, after hearing a shout from the next route: "is the your blood on this wire?" this knocked my confidence a little as it was a route that needed to be soloed as there was no gear. Next we walked down to the infamous 'Three Pebble Slab' (HVS/E0/E1 depending on who you listen to)which Ellie had her eye on, so up the toprope went, and just as we were de-rigging that, i nice guy, called Mark decided he would lead it, so i fiddled with the set up slightly, and got on abseil, with camera in hand. Here's the result. Later, we sat at the bottom of the crag, eating lunch, as you do, when a woman, who would have fitted in the film 'The Omen' perfectly stood maybe 1/2 a mile away,at the top of Curbar Edge, waved, so we waved back to her, totally un aware who she was. anyway, 10 mins later, Ellie says, "SHIT, there's that woman we waved to...", oh, how we tried so hard not to laugh...! After lunch we toproped another route called 'Slab Recess Direct' (HS 4c). Finally Ellie decided it was time for her first ever trad lead, which went swimmingly. Video here. The route was, 'Nursery Slab' (Mod). By this time we were getting cold, so we trooped back of down the hill, and got to the train station 30 mins before the train arrived...ahh, well, it was a good day.

Two weekends later (22nd March) i decided i wanted to go and boulder at Stanage Plantation, so of i went, all on my ownsome, from Hathersage train station nice and early as usual. I got my shoes on, did a few problems, looked up, to see Jonny Davis, one of James Oswald's friends thst works at Awesome Walls Climbing Centre, i had talked to him a few times, so we agree at do a bit of bouldering together, one of the more notable problems i sent was Delivarete sit start (V4), a classic arete to the right of the even more classic dyno problem, Deliverance (V8/9). And that was the end of that day.

So then, i finish school at 2:25PM on Fridays, so said to Adam Bridges, a friend from school who climbs a little bit, "D'ya wanna go check out this new bouldering crag i found?", of couse he did. so 2:25 came round, we speed walk to my house, dive inside, get changed, grab the bouldering mat, and dissapear up the 35mins aproach from my house. when we arrive, it bloody windy, so climb whilst wearing gore-tex's we did, working along the edge made about 25 first ascents of problems for VB-V4.

Finally, we managed to get to Hobson Moor Quarry on a Wednesday, with Dan, Gareth and Hugh. I repeated stuff i had done before, and onsighted 'Gideonite' a HVS 5a coner crack.