Hi, dont know if anyone might be interested but here's a bit of a trip report from my smashing, amazing Lakes cragging trip last week, got back last Saturday night. We did loads of excellent routes despite the generally crap forcast over the week, bonus!
On the first day I got my friend Phil straight off his night shift and headed northwards, away from the false idol of the gritstone edges and towards the rhyolite promised land of the Lakes. After a long night shift we decided on a pleasant single pitch crag to start on and Black Crag on Pike o Blisco fitted the bill nicely. We set a target of doing 10 routes in the afternoon and duely managed this without much ado, apart from Phil continuing his habit of punching the rock and liberally smearing blood all over key holds. So that's where it all came from, not a pagan sacrifice of a particularly engorged chicken, but my friends 'unique' climbing style.
After a particularly rock and roll night out involving 1 pint and collapsing into bed by 9pm we were ready and raring to go by 8am on the second day. The early start was occasioned by a poor weather forcast from some point in the afternoon and my burning ambition to visit White Gill and climb Slip Knot. After a quick warm up on the seemingly neglected Inferno (go do! the overlap on pitch 2 has an exquisite sequence to pass it), I finally got to grips with the wall pitch of Slip Knot. I had cunningly suggested Phil lead pitch 2 for his 1st VS, neglecting to mention the 'beautiful wall pitch' described by my guide. Pitch 2 looked intimidating from the stance, so I lashed my self to at least 4 anchors, after all, I wanted to make it hard for Phil to bottle it and switch over on the belay! Phil did a good job on his 1st VS lead, although he did later admit to nearly bottling it, he decided not to as the belay looked too complex to change over! Only my friends interests at heart, honest!
Ok, that will do for now, although there are more tales of blood wiping, foot sketching and even new routing to come from later in the trip.
Hope anyone that bothered to read this enjoyed it
