Craven Mountaineering Club
Three of us plus one guest wandered up to Rylstone on a warm evening under blue skies, a perfect evening to be up on a moorland Gritstone outcrop.
Starting out on the “must do” Presidents Slab, we moved onto “Bad Boys”, following this Steve decided to do Twin cracks (ignoring the luminous green and bird poo!), following this up with Falcon Crack, Monkey Corner and a top rope inspection of Angry Woman. Andy and myself decided on Senators Saunter (pictured), Misty Moo and Dead Kennedy’s.
Five of us headed over to the beautiful valley containing the Stoney Banks. Erica, Chris and Tony led the early charge with Roger and myself following up later.
Quite a fresh wind was blowing down the valley meaning we were all quite keen to keep moving, fortunately this is easy to do at High Stoney with it’s mixture of sport and trad, and particularly at the left hand end short bolted routes at accessible grades.
Some routes completed were Mutton Jeff, What Remains, Pinnacle Flake, King Flush and Candy’s Case.
With arms feeling heavier than they did on the walk in we retired to the Listers in Malham
Roger nearing the top of Candy’s Case
Eventually the ever present rain of the past few weeks parted and we finally managed to get a Tuesday evening trip in.
8 of us headed upto Pot Scar to try to tick some of the classics and look at some of the more “esoteric” routes!
In the warm evening sun Equity, Nirvana, Cannabis and payback were all climbed, along with some lesser traveled routes such as Fingers Climb and Car Stop. There were even rumors Sunspot recieved an ascent…must just be a rumor though…..
As the sun set we headed off to the Mason’s at Gargrave for a post climb pint 🙂
Chris and Erica climb into the sun on Equity
Sunset from Pot Scar
A good days climbing was had at Attermire by the 7 of us. John, Phil and I started on The Gangway and we were then joined by Jo, Shirley and Dave and later John W. After The Gangway I then headed off with Jo to get slightly battered by the wind on Ginger and even more so on Zig Zag. We then decided we could either have sunshine or shelter but not both and the latter won the day so we returned for some shelter and lunch on the middle tier of the main wall.
I then took on layback which John W had told me was a good route (mmmm), After the first well protected crack fatigue took over and that combined with the rockfax route image been slightly wrong led to some colourful language and an unnecessary traverse but eventually the route was done and Jo and John followed me up. In between all this various ascents were made by everyone else including Striction, Census, Broken Chimney and Freeby.
All in all a reet grand day out.
So five of us hardy souls plus two guests headed to Almscliffe. The forecast was for dry weather but 45mph winds due to drop at 7pm. The dry forecast element was correct, the wind dropping element was not. It blew a whoolie all evening!
Steve Wilson and two guests opened up the evening with an ascent of Fluted columns before heading to more shelter and the dubious delights of Cup and Saucer. Dave Collier and Andy Barton decided decided to do battle with Parsons Chimney. Dave Hunter and I decided to go for the classic Birds Nest Crack followed by Crack and Wall.
As the evening progressed some groups felt that a bit of top roping was in order, basically just to keep warm! Dave and I headed down to Low Man where Dave lead the very enjoyable Square chimney and Whiskey Crack which we Followed up with our own ascent of Fluted Columns.
Steve and friends concluded the night with a route on Low Man before we all sought the sanctuary of the refined Square and Compass for a quick half and home.
image © Copyright Les McLean and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
