On Saturday the 26th of march, the 'Bod Squad' commonley known to boulderers as the 'Pickering massif' descended onto almscliff for a right ol' grit stone climb ubiquitous with that of tweed hats and hob nail boots that once rubbed with the sharp pebbled yorkshire grit. In this day and age, the grit is often ascociated with the young melencoly of youthing boulderers with beanie hats and an abundance of mats which cover the holy cow pats at almscliff crag. This not what so ever satiricle analysis of what loiteres the crags of the humble roling land differs from that of the tweed wearing hard nuts that have travelled the crags for the past hundred years. However, this change has not come instantly, in the 80's we saw slightly obese lycra wearing men embrace the crags with odd spectacles of E7 ascents despite a clear bear belly preventing a proper grip of slopes and crimps. Everyone was especially blown away by the noteable ascents by a certain John Dunn who would often nock of a highly graded E number after polishing of a cake or what he would call an over sizzed muffin. We can not deny the versitility of this stone which has been climbed by generation to generation, each presenting its own steriotipical grit climbing odities which make this famed rock what it is. Poor mans granite as one particular UKC user described it as.
So, we arived in at Almscliff doned in tweed jackets and a beany hat to a rather cloudy and tipicaly windy almscliff crag. We started off with leads of Fluted columns which was enjoyable as you can sit down every three moves and enjoy the surrounding feild.
I would also like to add that the sufficient amount of gear to take is a few medium sized nuts and the odd cam and maybe a hex for the belay at the top, not the 20 quickdraws, full set of hexes, 5 cams and double set of huts i saw one guy carry.
After that, Jake tried Square chimney to whisky crack and erm 'retreated'. Then I had A go and found it pretty goo although not entirely happy with my slightly punterish climbing so far.
Then we headed up on to high man and Jake tried this cool looking climb.
Then he got the typical 'almscliff pump' and came down again so I tried to get the cam out and a stuck nut which was stuck and then I got my new size 4 stuck so then i was really sad and subsequently speant 45mins getting this stuck gear out....
After that Tom made a rather speedy ascent of wall and crack, HS 4b but the way he did it probably was about 4c. Then Jake also lead it making them quite chuffed.
After that I lead stomach traverse VS 4c which I was rather pleased with after last time i tried neither me or matt could do it in the high winds. I placed two bits of gear as well which i was pleased with cos it shows i'm becoming a bolder climber.
It was over a big cow pat aswell.
After that I tried great western getting a nut stuck after i decided not to go for my first E3, western front, which i'm pretty sad about to be honest.
Then Jake tried birdsnest carck and failed and I almost soloed after showing him how to jam and ended up about half way up. So then he decided he'd try some diff on low man to end the day. So anyway, Jake managed the first section to about 2 metres using a crimp two slopers and this crazy egyptian layback toe hook move. Abd err well failed at the rest and so climbed back down. He wasnt over happy now so we went for some fish and chips felling we'd had a 'fruitfull' day at what is a crag with a rather fruit full history of tweed, beanies and fat mycra wearing muffin eating climbing Vdiffs and E7's.
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