The irony continues this week as once again my good lady is further North than usual and I am armed with four wheels and yet unable to use them with an impending deadline this Thurs.
The weekend wasn't looking too great further afield and over the phone I crumbled and agreed to her family popping in for dinner (a long way from Watford, non?) one evening either Fri or Sat. They plumped for Sat and on waking in the morning after sampling some local ales at the Riverside, it was plain to see that the flat wasn't going to be in an acceptable state to have guests if we went climbing. Reluctantly we both sorted the mess out and vowed to be more organised next time, with me silently cursing my moment of weakness.
The evening itself went off fairly well, her mother deposited some matching cushions (I shit you not) for the van made out of scraps from the upholstering. Leaving it too late again we scrounged a table at Zeugma 2 for what turned out to be a frustratingly average meal and one of the first her family have let us pick up the tab for.
Sunday came and I'd like to say we jumped out of bed and got going bright and early. The reality of it is Natalie woke early and I slept like the student that I am. After midday I surfaced, ate and plotted a course to Matlock.
Ever since abbing in to High Tor the first time I've eyed up the lines that break out of the Castellan cave, they breach some impressive territory and I can remember thinking on more than one occasion that it was unlikely I'd ever have the balls to do any of them.
After consulting the guide it turned out that many not so desperate routes forge their way through this steep ground. Circumnavigating the steepness with devious lines. Nightmare of Brown Donkeys (sadly I've not been dreaming about an ethnic neurotic version of the wonder mule, or is it the paragliding mule? You never know these days) was the route of choice. Mainly picked for line but backed up by stars and a recommendation from Mr. Littlefair. What I should have learnt by now (but sadly I haven't), is that Natalie is very happy to follow me up anything I should choose (that puts a sensible cap on it anyway!). However, if there is any form of sideways component to the route, she instantly becomes unhappy, and 'touchy', not to mention her movement slowing to a glacial pace.
The ab went fine although some fat b*gger has removed the spiky foothold I use to get past the first bit. All that remains is a brown hole where it once was. Abbing the line I pulled in on various bits of tat to ensure I had a fighting chance of ending up in the Castellan cave and thus avoiding the first pitch of loose VS crap that is skylight. Success was had and I was glad to be in the cave as Natalie rained down a block or two whilst abbing in. Good skills.
The first pitch is pretty fun leading you out of the cave on the RHS along the lower break to a stance below the groove.
Following this is one or two tricky (slightly bold) pulls into a dirty crack after which you climb up until you see a large peg, down climb a bit and then try and fathom whereabouts you actually turn the corner to the obvious ledge on Laurin. This took a while as there wasn't any chalk, and more to the point, there wasn't much for your feet. Especially if you've been an idiot and are now suffering the consequences of breaking in new boots in the most undesirable manner. After what was likely an age I found the traverse line and scrabbled my way across to the ledge via a piece of tat that looked bomber. Looking rightwards my error was clear; tat may look good on the outside but sure enough the bit inside the rock is probably not that confidence inspiring (exposed core and not much of it). A breather was had before eyeing up the various bits of tat, snapped bolts and wooden blocks and opting to belay under the big roof (not advised in the guide). Once again this had so much rotten tat that it was hard to pass my sling through the fair sized pocket in the back of the birds nest.
At this point my earlier identified issue came into play. Nat struggled with the initial pull into the groove, fought her way up to the peg then rat crimped her way over to the ledge looking non to happy. At the belay I gave her the option of backing off (I'd managed to lean out and grab the ab line on the aforementioned ledge and trailed it with (I really thought she'd want off at this point). My offer was met with a resounding "NO!" so once again the ab line was freed to hang in space.
The next, and final pitch has to be one of the finest positions I've climbed in thus far in the UK. Traversing on undercuts and poor feet underneath a roof to its edge and then making some fantastic moves around it and into a groove above. Sadly this is where my delight ended. Rock quality from hereon was poor to say the least and each path I attempted to leave the groove left me on holds that seemed more inclined to part company with the rock than I care for! Lower turned out to be the way, with an old peg marking the path that some fool must have picked out many moons ago.
At the top, boots off, life returning to my toes ever so gradually, Natalie began what was to be an entertaining pitch. Having placed two runners fairly early on the traverse, the first easily visible, the second somewhat buried, I made sure to explain that if needs be she should clip into the first bit, lean across to strip the second and then unclip from the first, remove it and continue. This almost registered but not in its entirety. From what I gather, she did indeed clip into the first, and then succeed to remove the second. However, she failed to remember to unclip from the first and thus began a process of moving the nut and then re-weighting it in exhaustion. This process was repeated until the inevitable happened; she'd moved it enough that it wasn't good enough to sit on. A little shriek later (enough to stop walkers down by the road), a lot of cursing, and a quick top rope of a dirty (harder) route and she was into the joyful world of loose rock for which I was blamed.
On summiting a quick glance at my mobile showed that it'd taken us a whopping 5 hours. I still can't quite fathom where the time went but considering you can get a meaningful value in mm per minute and that people climb El Cap in less time it was seriously slow.
(I really wish I had a compact to carry on routes like this)
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