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Thursday 13 July 2017

Witness the Gritness!

It was another fine evening yesterday, so we headed to the Peaks again.  With a flourish of last minute planning we decided to go to Higgar Tor as Ed felt the need to push his climbing into Font 7 territory, and I was looking to try and push myself a little (although not that much!) too. After work I drove out and wandered over the top of Higgar Tor past a plethora of youth groups out enjoying the weather, and dropped down to the Big Slab area where Ed and Kelly were warming up.


(An aside while I think of it: In my book it is Higgar Tor, whereas the location I ended up tagging things with on Instagram and Facebook was Higger Tor.  Turns out both are acceptable, but I am sticking with Higgar Tor as that's what my book knows it as).


After warming up on Broken Arete and quickly getting my head back in to climbing I flashed Pocket Wall which was satisfying, as I was quickly getting on to harder stuff and sending it.  We then moved on, initially looking to head towards Like Pommel but ending up at Harvester.  Here Andy joined us, complete with bike, having ridden out from Sheffield.  Harvest Grove went after a failed attempt where I didn't feel comfortable, then when I got to the top the second time I noticed that I was oozing blood from my little finger - this rock is sharp! Soon taped up and it was time to try Harvest Arete.


Ed got up this quickly, throwing a heel up to a nice ledge and rocking over it, but neither Kelly or I could make this work.  I eventually cracked it by using a pebble for my left foot and getting my right onto a small lip around the arete, allowing me to stand up for the top at which point it was pretty much over save for watching your head when topping out.  We then worked at Combine Harvester, Ed again sending it without too much bother while the rest of us suffered the sharp rock again and again.  I was getting the traverse start in fine, but failing to get to a position where I could then finish it using the same beta I used on the arete.  Eventually multiple repeats saw my technique going backwards so I called it a day on this one.


We then headed over to Leaning Block, the reason we came here as Ed wanted to try the 7A Witness the Gritness.  This is an imposing block, and has quite a few trad routes going up it.  Witness is on the lower side of it, meaning you are faced with the might of the boulder and even though you are not going all the way up it, it's quite intimidating.

Definitely not staged to make it look like we were going to solo it. Nope.

I was quite tired from trying Combine Harvester by this point so mostly spotted and watched while Ed, Kelly and Andy gave it repeated attempts. I gave it several good goes, eventually managing to pull on and get off the ground but unable to go anywhere right or left.  Ed was managing to get an awesome knee bar in, but even once I had switched from shorts to trousers for protection from yet more shard rock neither Andy or I could make it work.  The rock was quite warm and only got warmer as we held it, but the start holds were also suffering from excessive chalk - a bugbear of mine when climbing inside, never mind outside.  You really don't need that much - you are only trying to dry your hands - and especially when outside you really should clean it off afterwards.  It's not that hard to show some respect for the rock and your fellow climbers.


Anyway, rant over.  While we were attempting it a group of Scouts came through who were weaselling up a fault in the block, quite a few of them expressed a desire to climb what we were climbing but I think maybe our lack of progress put them off :). Ed was getting further up than any of us, and at one point borrowed a stick from one of the scouts so he could tape a brush to it and clean a higher hold.  Eventually as the light failed and we had all had enough of this, I took my shoes off at this point and kinda wish I hadn't as everyone else tackled the start of a trad route which looked easy but high - topping out at the same place Witness tops out.


And with that it was time to leave the peaks again in the light of a beautiful setting sun. Hopefully it won't be long before I am back.






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