Pleasant climbing at The Roaches a few weeks ago with some of the Climbing Clan.
Arriving at the crag, one member of the party was swearing violently that this whole climbing this was a terrible idea when walking up the hill was so hard. Thankfully it was only our little climbing family, and no innocent 15year olds’ ears were burned.
We climbed up Right Route (VDiff) a fantastic warm up lead for me, that reminded me what great gear can do for your confidence, and I’m told also a great route to remind you
why roofs are annoying and great for bumping your head on
·why polish on routes is nasty
that you can actually climb outside on rock
We then retired for a sumptous lunch including a course of carrot cake whilst watching ripped lads sending The Sloth (HVS gnarly gnar)
Stuart then lead Rotunda Gully (Mod) whilst looked awkward for the grade… but sent it and forced the others to do it after him and started a trend.
Jeffcoats Chimney (VDiff) was described
“A classic of considerable antiquity.”
Here’s some interpretations of these words:
scratched and polished to shit
§ full body thrutching and body jamming
± not protectable for the first 5 metres
I’d also describe it as fun, but the others in the group, might not share that! Leading it was certainly exhilerating, and I enjoyed sending my second on an easter egg hunt to zig-zag and pick up my nutty eggs in unusual parts of the crag.
Ultimately we arrived at the belay and jokes started flying about me tricking people into coming caving and getting them stuck in a spacious belay cave.
Once we’d stacked everyone in the belay cave, I lead the full body toilet pitch. Eager not to be caught short, we’d taken 60 metre ropes…
The second (toilet) pitch turned out to be somewhat disgusting, extremely well protected, and over before you think its started. I’ll leave you suggest a comparison.
30 seconds later, I was hauling two 57 metre lengths of rope up the 3m pitch.
Ultimately, everyone reached the top and were reminded how much of a gorgeous sun-trap The Roaches Upper Tier is in summer.
A wonderful day with a fab Clan of Rebecca, Katie and Stuart.
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
