Sunday 28 November 2010

Lakeland Winter

Above: Pitch 1 Into the Groove

I was out today with Campbell in Langdale. We walked in to have a look at the crags on Bowfell, as I had my sights set on something spicy. After a bit of a detour in the clag (to busy chatting and no knowledge of the area and a reluctance to take out the map), we finally found are way to the buttresses. Time had escaped us a little and we could not see any of the buttresses other than the one we were standing under. So we just opted for an easier option on the crag we where at. I started up In to the Groove VI,7 on Traverse Crag, which had a tricky, boldish first pitch with some good climbing. the second pitch was the crux and had a very bold committing start, with no gear and a very bad landing. This is my first day out this season, so traversed into the adjacent route, which in fairness looked better. This gave me the 50m crux pitch of Big Groove V,6, which had some steep climbing with good gear. All in this gave to good tech 6 pitches to make a consistent route. We were soon at the top and back down to solo Buttress Gully II before walking back to the car. Unfortunately I left my camera on the traverse path on the way down, so all my pictures are lost. Although the weather cleared and we had a good day in the end, It has put a fair bit of snow day in Kendal since we got back at 5pm, and there is a surprising amount of ice about in some of the becks.


Above: Pitch 1 Into the Groove
Below: Pitch 2 the Big groove

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