In reply to UKC Articles:
I don’t think there’s anywhere in the Peak with a decent selection of 6s. Head to Portland or the A55 for that. Even Llangmynech - far from perfect but great for fitness and feels quite traddy.
There are some good routes scattered around the Peak though. I thought this one was great at 6b+ and the logbooks agree. https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/dovedale-962/the_lime_arch-194801
Lots of good 7as and some occasional good upper 6s in Chee Dale and to a lesser extent WCJ. Not exactly easy for the grade but at least you know that you can climb 7a if you can do a 7a at the Cornice, just don’t expect to onsight it!
Yorkshire is better though. Again, more so from 7a.
I think most people climbing up to about 7a tend to focus on onsighting and hence it’s easy to equate good with easy to onsight and reasonable for the grade (as well as not being chossy and having interesting moves). That’s fair enough but I think to do the good stuff in the UK you’ve got to embrace the redpoint struggle (which then means you can onsight harder). It’s a bit like alpine or winter climbing, or trad on a big sea cliff or mountain crag. Unless you’re climbing well within your grade and conditions are perfect, prepare to suffer and put the effort in. That’s a bit tongue in cheek and redpointing isn’t exactly suffering but my point is that you can’t expect to have it all on a plate. I think a lot of people expect climbing to be this cuddly thing but in the UK that is rarely the case.
The issue with Peak quarries is they’re all a bit rubbish really, while the natural lime is hard for the grade, hard to onsight and generally not amazing compared to Eurosport, but at least it’s got soul… and it will be a struggle 😉