A York, in York, in Yorkshire

With the VauxSquad back from their holidays, running various other sessions at Vaux, making an order of two new pair's of Tenaya Oasi's - one comfy 7 and a half and a tight 7, it was time for another trip out to the real rock to get my fix and carry on with this challenge. This time a nice quiet trip with myself and Tom 'The Boss' Hull to attempt crushing some Yorkshire grit!

A side note - This Blog was meant to be more focused on setting but I haven't been rota-ing myself for setting at Vaux to get some inspiration back but hopefully these outdoor trips should help with that and more setting on the way.



With the weather looking awful and the drive being pretty miserable we decide to spend the morning warming up in Steve Dunning's Depot climbing centre in Leeds. A really cool centre, despite a mass amount of setting and some soft grades, Tom and I had an initial ego boost to start the day off, just getting some mileage in not to wear us out. Constantly checking to see if the weather will get any better, we decide to suck it up and head out choosing Almscliff as our first destination of the weekend. Arriving, the rain clears up, the breeze kicks in, the sun comes out and what started off as a pretty crap day, it turned into a beautiful, glorious afternoon/evening. With a quick slightly damp warm up, we check out some classic boulders starting off with The Virgin Traverse (V4). With some burly slopers and some crafty heel and toe jams we manage to get it in two separate parts but powered out, we rest and change boulder. Regaining some energy doing some V1/V2's we try and complete The Flying Arête (V4) and the juggy highball, The Matterhorn Arête. Finishing the day off next to The Devil's Roof, time for the Pub!

Diggs on The Green Traverse

For part two of the weekend, we planned to go Caley. Still damp from the day before and uninspiring, we head back to the car to find Dave Barrans heading up for a session with his dog. Re-planning and not finding anything we like, we sack off Yorkshire and head south to join my other colleague (Diggory) and his friends from uni at Stanage. Sun coming out again becoming yet another glorious day, we quickly warm up and crack straight on with that harder more fun climbs. I try my hand at Deliverance (V8) again, but can only get to the dyno, still unable to launch high enough. Was good seeing Diggory and crew try it too, it only got me more psyched! Spending two much time, we sack it off for some more do-able routes. I lead the guys to The Green Traverse, getting my 2nd ascent of it with the others battling it out to get there; when along came Steve McClure to show everyone how it's done by doing laps on it. With everyone getting tired we move on to The Hourglass and later Not To Be Taken Away. With all of us trying and none of us topping, we head home for a long drive back with the highlight of the drive being us getting Papa John's at a service station!

The sunny walk in

Roll on next month for some setting at Milton Keynes' Big Rock, The Lakes and some more setting at Kendal! Super Psych!

Dancing on Deliverance

The Beginning Of Challenges To Come!

I suppose we'll start this blog with this challenge I'm currently trying to do which is the 12 Month Crag Challenge. Basically. A different crag each month, even if its just a day, it doesn't matter, as long as I touch rock and actually try hard on something, it counts! This started off in March and to kick things off, myself and a few of my friends from my local gym headed up to the Peaks with some Stanage Plantation action. The drive up was pleasant and the weather was looking perfect for the whole weekend. Everything was going well until I opened my bag to find that I had left my climbing shoes at work... You'd think going for a climbing trip, you'd remember your shoes, but obviously not and I wasn't prepared to do the 4 hour drive back home.

Day one started off pretty well, borrowing my friends solutions that were 2 sizes smaller than my normal climbing shoe size and also has a small hole in the toe, so was rather painful but still managed to get Not to be taken away (V4) fairly early on. Later throughout the day I struggled on Deliverence (V8) and tried my hand at the classic Green Traverse (V6) but failed miserable due to tiredness. During lunch time we hit up the Outside shop in Hathersage to buy me a new pair of shoes! I've have been looking at the Tenaya Oasi's for a little while and wondering if they'd fit or not and to my surprise the 7's fitted perfectly! But decided to go for half a size up just so I didn't have to break them in as much. After lunch and a bit of a break we headed back out to Burbage but was getting extremely cold and windy so cut the climbs short and went to the pub!

Day two went a little better, going back to Stanage I popped onto the Green Traverse and crushed it on the 3rd go! Also hopped back onto Deliverence smashing the bottom section up to the dyno and coming inches away from the top with not enough dynamic power to get my fingers over the top. A little disappointed with that but still fairly chuffed on a short day of climbing and getting that far so quickly. The drive back was decent but would've loved to stay for longer but unfortunately had to be back for work.