Crag booty – up for grabs

It’s been seven weeks since I have been climbing outdoors, and for this one the sun was forecast.  It was the first good weekend forecast time in a few months so Lou, Steve and I took the chance to reacquaint ourselves to placing some gear.  Neither of them claimed to be climbing fit so we started late and didn’t get to the crag until gone 10.  Despite the late start the carpark was all ours:

The sky was clear and the rock dry except some cracks where seepage still had a hold.  Better still it was a sea breeze so we were out of the cool wind and it was a great temperature.  We found that we were not the first out and Mick had a couple of clients who he had playing about in the Fat Chance area.  See if you can spot the climber:

We however headed for the easy slabs next to Steel Wall.  Back in May there had been a rock fall and this area was cordoned off.  The decent gully was still taped off but the rest of the area was open for use.  My intention was not to lead anything and let Steve and Lou get back on the horse, so Steve with great gusto jumped on first lead.  Seeing Lou was belaying I found a rock lounge and soaked up the rays while playing with a few settings on the camera:

I cleaned Dunlop Special on second to allow Lou to get her head into the game and have an easy top rope.  The route has a tricky corner to start but after that the slab is a relaxed stroll, unless like Lou your head was still not sure about all this malarkey:

Then she had to dig a bit deeper and have a bash on lead.  Starting nervously and not trusting her gear since her experience at Moses some time back.  It was pretty clear as despite this big tri-cam being able to hold a house up she was still had to have a bit of a talk to herself:

With some gentle encouragement mixed in with ample portions of sarcasm, as could only be expected with both Steve and I there, she bucked up her game and was soon tackling the final crack system of Rattle snake:

Sitting in the warm sun atop Steve was hatching a plan, I wondered on the sense of it but had faith that if Lou was not keen that she would soon squash the idea.  So I let the two of them wander back down, while I was left to tackle a small tri-cam that Lou had managed to place a bit too well and proved a tricky bugger to get out:

Lou had not squashed (in her words ‘not wanting to crush his dreams’) the idea and so Steve set off up the first pitch of Sirius, a great climb but also a nervy one that heads up the right trending crack and then back left along the break.  An airy traverse at the grade:

At a slow and steady pace he made his way up and then out left.  In fact it was a very, very slow pace that involved lots and lots of fiddling with gear and stacks of hand shaking to avoid the arms pumping out.  Being sensible as only Steve can be he had omitted to take cams so was fiddling in passive tri-cams and wires:

At the end of the traverse before the crux move onto the ledge he fell, and came down dripping in sweat and completely stuffed.  He was not keen to go back up so I offered to polish the lead off, as Lou was also not surprisingly not keen.  While doing it I replaced all the tri-cams and with cams to make it easier to clean.  I had trouble with one piece half way along the traverse that due to the fall had been wedged in.  Despite sitting on other gear and bashing it with the nut key and the biggest hex I had, I couldn’t get it to budge:

I set up the belay and looked down to see Steve packing the bag, Lou was tied in so I belayed her up.  But not very far and she fessed up that her head was not in it.  Um, only one thing for it so I down climbed the route retrieving all the gear except that little pink tri-cam.  That can now be treated as in-situ gear or to someone willing to hang about and bash the hell out of it to get some crag booty.  If that person happens to be you let Steve know:

On the way out Lou was craving food and Steve was also keen to have a bite to eat, so for the first time ever they managed convince me to stop at the Beer Farm.  We got a drink and then went to order food.  Not only was there a 40min wait for food but they had sold out of veggie burgers, which Lou had been talking up the whole way there.  So after finishing the drink we hit the road still starving:

Hopefully this weekend of rock entertainment will be the start of more regular outings, only next time both Lou and I will be more vocal about the sense of Steve’s imagination: