Elizabeth Stephenson writes about a formative day out on the grit at Stanage...

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Stretch, uncoil, go on, just a fingertip's more, pop to it, just commit, go, GO! 

"Watch me, Molly!!"

I'm off.

Sky at my feet, leg caught in the rope, dangling ungracefully like some sort of gritstone guppy that's just been fished out of the rock.

Cradled by my cams, I extract myself from the fishing net of ropes I've deftly woven about myself and return the sky to its usual position. 

Breathing in hard, adrenaline floods through me and leaks out into my sweaty hands. I look up and grin at Basil, who is giving me an enthusiastic smile - I wasn't planning on giving him such a dramatic climb to photograph….

After a big day at Froggatt the day before, I'd come to Stanage hoping to take things a bit easier. Displaying my characteristic indecisiveness when it comes to choosing a route in a guidebook, I'd finally settled on Cave Arête, HVS 5a. Uncharacteristically, I decided to ignore both the 'reachy' symbol and the Rockfax warning that it involves 'long reaches' and is '5b for the short'. Coming in at around 5'4", I tend to take the 'reachy' symbol as gospel.

With a hint of psyche — having led 5b a number of times — I found myself racking up at the bottom of the climb.

After arranging an assortment of our racks on my harness and adding 'just one more Totem for good luck', (a mantra I live my climbing life by), Molly grins, tells me I've got this, and puts me on belay.

Pulling onto the first few moves, I was hit with that lovely moment of realisation that I'd need to try quite hard and quite quickly. The breaks were tauntingly beyond my arm span, the cam-sized promise of relative security from landing in a heap on Molly eluding me… Employing my tried and tested 'intermediate crimp method' that every short climber can relate to, I managed to latch the edge of the break, before swiftly plugging in a totem and clipping it with well-practised efficiency.

Wriggling over the rounded edge, I established myself on the ledge below the crucial moves. At this point I was afflicted by a bad case of ledge fever and nest fever at the same time (they are highly infectious, these climbing bug things). Robin-mode engaged, two beautiful cams nestled themselves either side of the arête, and after a cursory tug, I attached a rope to each. 

Contemplating my next moves with a frown, I went up and down a few times on the compelling hand jam, trying to decipher how on earth I was going to grow 5cm in the next 10 minutes. After a few rude words directed at myself that rhyme with 'duck' and 'me', (to which Molly pithily replied she'd rather I took her out for dinner first; I can highly recommend a belayer with exceptional comedic timing), I had nothing but to go for it. 

Grasping high above my head, I latched a sloping hand hold on the arête with my left. Removing the beautiful hand jam took some cajoling as my right hand went from blissful security to desperate fingertips that ran across the gritstone, seeking any momentary grasp of friction. Realising that none was forthcoming, accompanied by the increasingly desperate cry of "watch me, Molly!", I adjusted my feet a fraction higher below me, and slapped with wild abandon for the good hold I could see.

My foot catching in one of the ropes, the fall seemed to stop before it started. I'd never inverted on a trad climb before, so that was something new. In fact, in my many years of trad climbing, it was only my third proper fall — I try to view each one as a bonus step in increasing my confidence to try hard. 

Happily, I was completely intact, having not gone far beyond the aforementioned nest of bomber cams, and aside from that jittery feeling as you watch your adrenaline bugger off to Stanage North, I was surprisingly delighted to have committed to an insecure move, even if it hadn't worked. Shared camaraderie with a pair on the adjacent route, and much encouragement from Basil above and Molly below, meant a second go was on the cards. 

Once we'd adjusted Molly's belay stance slightly to try and dissuade a second inversion, I attempted to calm my shaky legs and ruefully summon my adrenaline back from Stanage North, where it had happily been chilling with someone else's adrenaline from Kelly's Overhang (one on my highly optimistic tick list).

I always find the liminal period before making an intimidating move disconcerting. You know you've got to do it if you want to go skywards, that it's coming imminently, but you aren't doing it yet…hithering and dithering, all too aware that you've just got to try. I can't really put my finger on the point when I start climbing, or which antidote finally counteracts the ledge fever.

It's a funny bit of your brain to engage, when you leave somewhere you feel secure and climb something you've just fallen off. There's probably a technical name for this — visualisation or something — but when I'm eyeing up a lead I find scary, I try and imagine fast-forwarding the next 30 or so minutes, seeing myself at the top of the grit, with the route done, and the rush of emotions, joy, relief, disbelief (sometimes) that I know will greet me if I manage it.

I reminded myself that the hardest part is always pulling on — once I've started, it is familiar territory. I know how the grit behaves, how to make my feet stick; I don't have any option but to deal with the move presented to me.

(Sometimes this works for me and sometimes it doesn't – occasionally I get plonked below a route and handed some Totems - that normally does the trick…)

Mental games temporarily suspended (this time visualising a custard cream at the top - I'm joking, it's massive balls of burrata at the crag that really get me going, ask Molly…) I took a few deep breaths and rubbed a bit more chalk onto my cheek; a nervous reflex I seem to have developed.

Committing to the second time, I knew I had to go for it. Hand jam in. Here we go again, I thought. Let's try and get the feet slightly higher this time… 

Up, up, and SLAP.

Fingers met gritstone with a conviction only brought on by February friction.

Surprised not to be falling, I had something – the sloper beneath the key hold. Bloody brilliant, mutters my adrenaline...but it was enough to work with.

I brought my feet up quickly below me, shifted the other hand round and pushed upwards, snagging the end of the good hold with my left hand and breathing a momentary sigh of relief — until I realised I was going to pump-out promptly if I didn't keep moving. A couple of shaky adjustments later, I skittered into a better stance before sneaking a cam into the back of the block. 

Whoops of delight from Molly bounced off the grit and a kind congratulatory yell from the pair on the opposite climb followed. I grinned up the remainder of the route, enjoying the final intriguing moves up the slanting corner, delighting in the change from powerful commitment to delicate gritstone goodness. Topping out into Robin Hood's Cave to a family tucking-in to their sarnies provided an amusing bump back to the present. My slightly manic grin, the customary dash of chalk on my cheek and blood on my fingers (the gritstone tax) probably wasn't what they wanted interrupting their peaceful lunch.

Cocooned in that post-climb glow, I set about making the belay and perched myself on the edge of the cave to bring Molly up on second. Molly and I have rather different climbing styles, though we have near exactly the same arm span, so I had some fun belaying when she came off multiple times on the crux, her bemusement floating up the grit from below. I went on to belay her on a phenomenal onsight of Wuthering, E2 5b as the next climb we did, so that says all you need to know! (Read, she is incredible at sketchy slabs.)

Self-deprecating jokes over, we laughed, we tried hard (a power grumble may even have escaped me) and most importantly to me, I forgot everything else as we played on the grit. 

In that moment, we were two women with total trust in each other, total trust in our skill and an overriding love for the rock beneath our palms and the bracken blazing the horizon.

Gritstone has become an integral part of who I am, and I'll be forever grateful for these small moments of escapism, where the sky is at my feet.