Gritstone, Midges & Sideways Campusing.

New Life - Cratcliff

I was at a birthday party on Saturday in fancy dress, as Batman. Maybe I thought I had super human powers or something as Sunday we ended up at Cratcliff.  Gritstone, in this heat.. are we mad?

The walk in confirmed our fears, it was hot.. and my arch enemy was out to make life miserable. Dr Midges and he's brought his army of 1 Million henchmen with him, all with one thing on their mind. Me.

I checked the bat utility belt for midge repellant but I was out. 

Lee and I repeated the classic Razor Roof, F6c. It's the uber sharp crimps on this problem that give its name.. they didn't disappoint. We looked at Razor Arete but didn't fancy the ankle snapping beta required to send it. 

Lee on Razor Roof

Lee ticked Hermits Traverse F6b - a right pump fest while been nibbled on by swarms of midges. Meanwhile I was doing what must have looked like a new hip hop dance craze, desperately trying not to be eaten. Now we were suitably pumped out of our mind warmed up. It was time to do battle with Jerry's Traverse F7b. The guidebook describes it as "an exercise in sideways campusing".

I've had a session on this problem before a couple of years ago, and was no where near it. This time however, I was batman. 

After a few goes getting the sequence wired, I had a cheese butty and coffee, it was time to ditch the bat cape, squeak the boots clean and fire up the big guns.. I managed the middle crux and powered to the last move, another campus to a crimp.. but pump (and probably the extra weight of 100,000 midges eating me) meant I missed and collapsed onto the mats.  Dr Midge was winning. 

Jerry's Traverse

Batman's trusty sidekick Robin (Lee) convinced me to have a good rest and go again. This time I got to the same crimp and powered through to the final holds and rocked out to victory... POW!  Jerry had gone down.

 Lee got close but didn't have the power reserves to crush it. Next time big lad. 

We finished by getting sunburned on the easy boulders outside the forest on a couple of slabs and arete's. The final test piece of the day was trying a slab using only feet - no hands allowed, which to my surprise I managed.