Oak Crag! Our favourite blakey outing!

Me, Jake Hampshire and Tom Barr hit oak crag the other weekend and it was tres bon. Our aim was to have our first full day of constant leading or soloing after we had recently gained some gear! First up was Cote Crack, VS 4c which is more awquard than it looks, I set off and placed a solid bit of gear, and just as i made my way up the strechy lower moves, SLIP! I fell off (which was fairly unexpected) and stopped, sat in my harness, hanging from the rope, only 20cm above a rock! The yorkshire VS applies to sandstone aswell it seems!

Cote crack lower moves.
After a few speedy ascents from  jake and tom on multiple rouutes, I fancied a go at stump crack VS 4b on the larger main butress and found it slimy but good fun.

Stump crack is the line on the leaft with the tree at the top.

Jake making a speedy solo!

Me soloing

Bit more soloing.

Now it was jakes turn so he attampted captain birseye, HVS 5b, (the thin crack in the picture above) He began tentativly up the slab placing lots of useless gear in the crack, he made the hard moves up the slab but then got a bit freaked when his gear began falling out and so escaped right up the line of my solo.

I now felt psyced for the superb looking E1 5c (leaft hand crack above) which has hard lower moves but bomber gear when ure there. I began up the crack but then felt the pressure of having a big pointy boulder beneath me. I atempted the hard layback move and raced to get some gear in, unfortunately i needed to slump back and the 'half in' gear popped and i fell to the floor. FAIL!

Not to worry, we'll certainly be back soon, especially to get that done properly!