Having left London in bright sunshine on Friday evening, we were concerned by the amount of black cloud over the Peaks on our arrival at Popular End car park on Saturday morning. Fortunately it remained dry all day apart from a short shower at the start.
Jillian and I climbed together and spent most of the day around the April Crack Area where Jillian was happy to leave all the leading to me. We started with Christmas Crack *** (HS 4a).
Following this we climbed Right Hand Trinity ** (S 4a) which seemed slightly harder than Christmas Crack and on which I managed to hurt my hand overdoing the hand jamming. After quite a long rest we did one more climb, Mississippi Chimney ** (Vdiff), on which Jillian, who was determined not to lay back the crack, required some anti-gravity assistance from Phil Loasby in order to get off the ground!
Dan headed home around 4pm with Gill Crebbin, Steve Leake, and Steve Jackson. Phil, Justin Sharpe, and Chris Field joined us for a few beers and a meal in the Little John in Hathersage before also heading home.
With Simon Harris’ departure early on Sunday morning, Mandy, Jillian and I were left to amuse ourselves for the rest of the day. We awoke to glorious sunshine and it was already getting hot before we left the campsite. We headed off to Burbage North where we installed ourselves at the base of Ash Tree Wall. Mandy and I took it in turns to lead, bringing up Jillian last, who having excused herself from the faff of belaying, spent most of the time sunbathing and reading the paper! I started with Wall Corner (HVD 4a). An awkward start led to the crux just above the ground, giving way to a fairly straightforward climb. Two subsequent parties setup a top rope and dogged this to death, before finally admitting defeat!
Mandy led Ash Tree Wall ** (HVD), an interesting climb with a short traverse to the left before finishing up the main wall.
I then led Ash Tree Crack * (Vdiff) which provided plenty of opportunity to practice hand jams and lay backs (removing more skin off my already sore knuckles).
Mandy finished by leading Bilberry Face (Vdiff), a balancy little number to the right hand side of Ash Tree Crack. We rounded the day off with a spot of bouldering on the way back to the car park before facing the usual South bound Sunday traffic on the M1.
