Jim and Dave, both 50 this year, attempted to climb 50 routes over the trip…
Jim cheated and arrived Tuesday night, met up with Keith and was already 5 trips up after a visit to Stanage Popular… Keith did well and led his best grade yet (Castle Crack HS4B). Andrew joined us and then we retired to Hathersage for dinner. We stopped at Birchen the next morning, to exploit the dry weather early on… and felt we did rather well. Thursday saw a long day out at Burbage North and Keith upp’d his grade again with Greeny Crack (VS 4B). The afternoon took us to Froggatt as we wanted to get round as many of the Eastern Gritstone edges we could.
Friday morning started with routes on Crow Chin and High Neb on Stanage, before the rising wind prompted a retreat to Robin Hood’s Stride. This pleased Dave G no end as he planned to get as much bouldering in to get his count to 50, having only the weekend to go at it.
Saturday and more of us arrived. An early start back at Birchen, to get the numbers up and then over to Stanage to finish in relative style. Dave Smith claimed an impressive ascent of The Asp… Sunday morning saw Andrew lead Amazon Crack back at Burbage, to upstage quietly all of us and tick his 65th route of the trip.
Lots of climbing, no surprise there. Plenty of fun at Hathersage and then again at Edale.
Thanks for everyone who turned up… and it was really good fun to share the ropes with you all. Enjoy the pictures!
Jim
