*
Love isn’t always easy, sometimes you have to work at it. Or so I’ve heard. This is my relationship with Stanage. When I first climbed there I was impressed and intimidated (a fancy word for scared). But I live in Manchester and love climbing so ignoring “the finest of gritstone edges” seemed churlish and rather defeatist. Everything I tried to climb there seemed too big and too rounded and too green, cracky, dark, chimney like or too slabby and exposed. The edge is 4 kilometres long so you’d think they’d be lots to do but I kept trying to climb things and failing. There’s the odd tick in the book but I have horrible memories of backing off climbs and wading through bracken or stumbling around in the dark looking for fellow climbing club members.
This year I decided that I wanted to make some progress with my climbing so I decided to try and climb outside twice a week and to keep going to Stanage until I enjoyed it, loved it even. Climbing partners were needed and have long been an issue, in the past my favourites had been injured, busy working, died and stopped speaking to me (well he wasn’t a favourite but he was useful!). Things have looked up considerably since joining a club and so I decided to set up a whatsapp group so that I’d be able to find a partner whenever I needed one.
A day after starting the group, on a sunny Thursday afternoon I went to Stanage with Henry, an amazing climber, dainty, light, very experienced and a joy to be with. We were joined by Howard who very very patiently watched me lead Black Hawk Traverse left and later told me I’d done Burgess’s variation which was a harder grade. I dithered horribly about the traverse on this and went up and down lots of times before being brave enough to step left but the rest of the climb was easier and made me very happy. Howard stayed completely calm throughout and let me work it out for myself. The day was delightful even though I hated seconding Anatomy and ended up with my feet higher than my head and doing an awkward bum shuffle.
Another day I was very happy to lead Heaven Crack and enjoy it and to lie in the sun on the balcony of Robin Hood’s cave appreciating the beauty of the place. A rainy day cowering under an overhang at Apparent North was a climbing write off but made me feel more at home there. It was lovely just wandering about and imagining super duper climbers making strenuous moves.
On Saturday we returned with a group. My friend Sharon was determined to climb flying buttress so we headed there first. Seconding was made much more fun by the company of the guys on the adjacent climb, watching them scale an E1 while exchanging pleasantries with us and going back for dropped specs was very entertaining.
We headed over to balcony buttress to meet our friends. It was my turn to lead and I wasn’t sure what to do, a friend suggested that it was time we stopped climbing VDiffs and moved on so he suggested Balcony Buttress. He soloed it so I decided it looked doable and gave it a go. I tried to place more gear when it was convenient than I sometimes do and to focus and stay calm when I got stuck. There were a few up and down movements near the top when I didn’t trust myself to move up but eventually I went for it. Rope drag threatened to pull me back down but I got over the top by pulling rope through and crawling a bit. Undignified but it felt like a real achievement. I looked back at my friends down below and out at the view with a big smile and felt a genuine surge of love for Stanage. Our relationship is definitely improving with time.
After that Sharon did a fantastic lead on Amazon Crack with gear so well placed that the swearing that ensued shattered the peace of the crag and prompted complaints from passers by. Well done Sharon, I was super impressed and the exercising of the lungs was great fun.
*Thanks to Martin E for this photo, not Stanage I know but it’s very very close.
idrathereatgrass 