Almscliff! Hail the yorkshire grit!

On sunday the 6th of february was bon! It was certainly a little learning curve and a great memory!

I was picked up bu Matt Capsey and off we went to almscliff crag near harogate for my first introduction to the legendary Yorkshire Grit! As we travelled nearer it began to rain...... and then the wind blew.... about 60mph! Matt did sujest a nice cosy climbing wall called harrogate climbing centre. But i didnt answer. lol! As we arrived, gods crag was directly under the edge of the cloud and had the first glimmer of sun we had seen since pickering. Must have been whatching over us ;-) .

Got out the car, bouldering matt blew away.

Regained matt, over style, guide book blew away.

regained guidebook. I blew away!


Joke haha!

With me regained, we stuffed the gear in a hollow and anchored the bouldering matt down with a cam size 2.
Then we whipped up fluted collumns, a classic vdiff on low man. After than i had a tour of the crag and started up stomach traverse. A jam some smeering and a stupid heel hook later i was three meters off the ground. Yeah! Then..... I fell off, right in a bloody cow pat as well, After a few more attempts i gave up. This Yorkshire VS really seems to haunt me.
Then Matt had a go, someone who has climbed up to E4, he fell off it, and again, and again. Now his lovely 5.10 climbing shoes resembled chocolate logs more than they did shoes so we moved to the next climb. I think we'll blame it on the wind ;-).

So, we moved leaft a climb or too (the wide crack in photo above just right of the person stood on the ground) known as central crack, as there was a handy rock to brace against to belay. I lead up through bottom crack getting various limbs stuck in the crack and at one point, my whole body. I then reached the top and placed some bomber gear. All this happened as Matt was being blown off the boulder into..... you guessed it! more cowpats. I caried on up the climb smearing up a small block and climging to two grooves as i was blown about the face. I placed a cam in a flared crack which was completely useless but made me feel better and i caried on to the top, untied and blew away again. All that effort for a HS.

Matt then lead up 'traditional climb' (the central crack of the three above) and then belayed me up. As I reched the centre of the wall I looked to the right and saw a fellow from leeds uni looking rather worried on the next climb. He was about 6 metres up and have gear at about 4 metres. His hands sweated more and more. Despite the wind he held on. He shouted "why oh why didnt i bring any cams". He then let out a shout, slipped off and due to the strech of his double rope, hit the ground! He was shaken but soon enough was back on the route!

As it began to rain i had a go at some severe on low man and then we packed up and looked in this cave.

After that, we went home as gods crag was finaly doused in its share of rain. As we drove home we rambled on the happenings of the day and concluded it was yet another good if not 'eventfull' day.

P.S. Artistic licensing must be taken into account when reading this blog post and you must realise that exaduration was kept down to a minimum.