Reliably April weather

Down below that bit of smoke.

The Bomb and I used to live in Hathersage in the Peak district, but I wasn't a climber then. We'd cycle to work in Sheffield up past Stanage edge, the 'back way' to Ringinglow (instead of the main Surprise View road, which is less steep to cycle but goes on for longer) and then through Fulwood, and we always saw climbers and boulderers about. We saw a lot of people. The village is a retail outlet for those who believe in the marketing gospel that 'outdoor activities' are about accessorising as much as possible.

We'd go for a Sunday afternoon stroll up the paths from Hathersage church and graveyard to the plantation and see people equipped with new double ski-poles, gaiters, goretex, buffs, sun-visors, camelbac hydration systems and 45–60 litre rucksacks, all the while with three bars on their mobile phones and with only highly maintained and well trafficked paths separating them from a village with regular buses and trains, pubs and restaurants all open at the weekend. If you fell and sprained an ankle anywhere in a 20 mile radius there'd be someone coming past in the next minute who was carrying a couple of first aid kits and if you waited another ten you'd have enough people there to carry you to a taxi. It was delightful to be in the middle of it all and not to share this way of looking at things, I suppose in the same way that it can be amusing and refreshing to see anywhere that you live being observed by brightly coloured tourists who cock their heads and take pictures of things that you stopped looking at after the seventh time that you saw it.

I first went back in the guise of a climber in April 2014 to see what Stanage is like from that angle. I'd had a good taste of gritstone at Castle Naze and the Roaches, but I'd held off going to Stanage because I don't like crowds or queuing to climb, and also because I was feeling strange about revisiting an earlier part of my life that I'd regretted leaving, and returning as one of those over-bedecked, hobby-enthusiast tourists who doesn't really belong but acts somehow entitled to be there. There's a role-playing to being a person who goes climbing that I haven't got to grips with yet, and which I don't think I'll get to grips with. The act of showing up at a crag or at a village near to a crag with a rucksack with ropes or a helmet attached makes a statement of intent that I'm self-conscious about – even if it doesn't draw looks from most people, I feel like there are other people there who climb or have climbed that are looking at me and judging me: he looks like a punter, all the gear no idea. I know that no-one's really judging me, and I know that if they are they're probably right, so I shouldn't worry about it, but I get that inferiority complex – what am I doing showing up here pretending that I'm going to achieve anything, carrying all this stuff and baggage.

It's not lost on me that the fact that I'm someone who makes judgements about the people I see out and about, and the fact that I imagine I'm being judged by people I see out and about, are not independent facts – we can wonder about the direction of causation or dependence another time. Another fact: a good cure for inferiority complex is to rehearse to yourself what your goals really are: why did you travel here, what did you want to get out of it? And on this occasion it wasn't to achieve anything impressive on grit, it was to hang out with my two best climbing buddies, D&N, and to get some time away from where I was living and working. We'd driven up from Birmingham where I'd flown in, and we had a plan to chase around in the van to whereever the weather was best – Lakes, Peaks, Wales, Wye Valley. The forecasts looked promising for the Peaks, so we hit the motorway, loaded up with food at a big supermarket at Chesterfield in sunshine, and drove into a cover of cloud as we came over the hills into the Hope Valley. It was bright and dry but with grey skies, and I was hoping that the threat of April showers would keep the Friday-afternoon crowds away so that I could rack up without being intimidated. I'm fortunate to know D&N, because between them they manage to level out the mixed feelings I get in these situations: D is at comfortable and relaxed about ignoring other people and maintaining a course towards achieving whatever it is he has set himself up to do, he is able to frame desires for himself towards particular things quite easily, and doesn't see why the mere presence of other people might inhibit those desires; N is able to articulate to D, and concomitantly able to articulate for me, why some previously-chosen-paths-of-action might no longer be or seem so desirable once we factor in some new information about our situation and options, and she's great a pressing ahead regardless. I feel like I'm the one holding back the most, holding back both from action and from expressing my thoughts, and that I also hold us back as a party, but another way of seeing it is that we work well as a party in so far as they're able to get me to do things where I might otherwise just give up.

I can't remember who lead Paralysis (VS 4b*, 10m), but I have feeling that resembles a memory as though it was the first thing we climbed. We climb as a trio with 2 ropes, someone leads and the others follow up on each strand, and it invariable means that we take a lot longer to do anything anywhere than any other party would. I have this picture of my toes looking down a route at D's head, which suggests I lead and I'm belaying, and since there's only one rope going down it's likely that N came second and this is D finishing up.

rock n heath

But my only lead that day was Bynes Route (HS 4a**, 14m), and that route doesn't look anything like this photo from the top – it has a couple of bulgy mantle-moves on flared and hard-to-protect horizontal breaks, the sort of thing I'd learned to deal with at the top of some easy Mournes climbs, and at the final few metres of Black and Tans at the Roaches. Bynes was a memorable outing because it involves bridging up into a sort-of cave, and then reaching out of it in an awkward way to a wide and rounded flared crack that forms a massive version of the pattern of mortar in brickwork – long horizontal cracks linked up with shorter vertical cracks. We also climbed Mississippi Buttress Direct (VS 4c***, 22m), and N took lead duties on this one. I remember it when I look at the pictures there on UKC, but it's one of those superimposed memories – the best I can do that has the mark of a recollection is that I found the starting moves hard and then really enjoyed the bridging moves in the mid-section, the way that beginner climbers can feel most happy when they don't have to possess much technique and can make progress by just pulling hard. These three routes took us the whole afternoon and it started raining as we finished up on Mississippi Buttress. We went to the Woodman's Arms for a pint after that, a great boozer, great to go back – it used to be the local for me and the Bomb, we'd go on Thursdays for the pub quiz and raffle and the free sandwiches they did on quiz nights, decent Jennings bitters too. I won the raffle one time, £45 or something like that.

We went and parked the van up at the campsite at Edale in the dark pissing rain, and sat in the Nag's Head drinking and planning our next moves. The forecast had changed and the bad weather was settling in for the next few, but Wales was due to get dry. So the next day we went back to Birmingham and spent the weekend there and then drove to Snowdonia. This visit we went straight to Tremadog, which is reliable for being dry even when it's chucking it down in the Llanberis Pass, it has a sort of micro-climate. We've parked up at Eric Jones' campsite and café enough times to have a routine about it – we can get there at midnight and plan an early start, but no matter our plans for doing as much as possible we don't get moving until nearer lunchtime, crossing the road to swap places with fully-racked parties who are coming down from several routes and ready for lunch while we're only animated from the effects of breakfast coffee.

I think we planned to get on The Fang straight away but there was a couple on it, and things nearby were dripping wet from morning rain, so we went around to the other side of Vector buttress to the Grim Wall, which is a bit of a suntrap so the majority of routes were dry, albeit with small pools in pockets and little trickles leaching out of cracks. N was feeling strong from having bagged the 4c lead at Stanage, and decided she was up for trying The Brothers Direct Finish (55m?, E1 5b**) – we'd done Shadrack and The Brothers on other visits, and tempted to see something new. As I recall, D went back to the cafe cos the coffee had done its work, so N and I geared up to do it as a pair, with the idea of dropping a rope for D if he caught us up. I think I also remember that N racked up to take the first lead but because she hates the big curved off-width start she went up and had a battle with it and ended up coming down and we swapped over. I took on the off-width from the outside and laybacked it, then there's some high-stepping, and instead of following Shadrack left, the route takes a rising traverse right,  following an arch-like overlap which isn't undercut, and I recall something making me nervous – perhaps the protection was more fiddly than I expected, or it was polished, or I started to feel the heat of the sun or the effect of a weekend drinking. I remember that we weren't really certain about what I was aiming for, but N talked me up and round, following a number of diagonal gullies for my hands and then feet, on to a small gently-sloped slab or ledge with weeds growing at the end. I think I brought her up here, and as she lead up the next pitch D joined us below and caught up. I can't remember anything about the 5b pitch – this often happens when I second something, I just don't take it in the same way that I do when I'm leading.

We got over on to The Fang (HVS 5a***, 57m) after that. I remember getting nervous standing around in the gully while (I think) D took the lead - it's a dark, wet spot, like many gullies are, and it just doesn't inspire positive thoughts. Also, spending any amount of time watching someone else lead up something gets me nervous – the mindset of leading doesn't include having thoughts about how to reassure your second that they're going to be fine, and seeing someone get disco-legs or hear them start cursing or breathing hard makes me imagine that either I'm going to have to do something to sort out a disaster that's on its way, or that I'm going to have a desperate time on it. I don't think D (or was it N?) had any issues, but the gloomy situation got to me. N  (or perhaps D) went up next and I followed up 3rd – I remember finding it to be a good climb, nothing particularly problematic, but I also remember hating the belay stance. It was on a tiny thin ledge, maybe 20 cm wide, on the back wall of the chimney shaped groove – they were perched on it underneath a big roof (a sharp rock points down to make the front of this roof, the 'fang' of the route's name) and were hanging from the anchor they'd set up, leaning on the walls. So I had to stop level with their feet, or a bit below. I passed up a cow's tail from my belay-loop for the anchor, and we put in an extra nut down next to me for another sling. Then I had to hang there, N decided not to take the next pitch, so D sorted out the ropes and lead off. He stepped across the chimney-shaped groove and up and on to the left wall. A few moves up and then he had to traverse out left, towards some sunlight that was coming onto the arête three or four metres further out. He protected the traverse by stuffing a small cam and a nut in a letter-box shaped horizontal slot at shoulder height in the middle of the wall, but that didn't leave much room for his fingers to fit in there, since it's the principal handhold for making the move. He stepped his feet across, keeping his weight low, and made some bold moves further left and then around the arête, which he moved up rather hurriedly – at this point I could just see his right hand coming around the arête on what looked like slopers. I think I was holding my breath through this whole section because D had been pretty quiet, and that's usually a sign that he's concentrating hard and finding the climbing pretty thoughtful. Then he said something about there being decent protection, and after that his voice moved up and above us, until he was almost out of earshot – we were shut in the dank gully under the fang while he was sitting up on top in the sun, chatting to someone.

I went next, stepping up next to N and in front of her to get onto the left wall – the feeling of exposure as the gully dropped away underneath me got me feeling like I needed to move fast, but I was glad to not be dangling from a nut any longer. I found the reach to the letter-box slot manageable but I couldn't see where I was supposed to put my feet after I'd moved past it – was I supposed to keep on the same level and make two shuffling steps left towards a positive-looking bulging handhold on the arête, or was I supposed to work my way diagonally up left a bit, where the arête was nearer but looked less positive? I couldn't remember what D had done. I kept in that position, with my hands in the slot, trying different foot and hand placements out to the left, before opting for the lower strategy and going for that positive-looking bulge. I got to the arête, matched my right foot to where my left foot had been and got my body and left foot around the corner to find something there to stand on. The bulge I was gripping was less positive than it had looked, and I felt it starting to slip as tried to smear my left-foot higher. I quickly got shuffling and managed to get both feet higher and reached out further with my left hand, which found a patch of green lichen, before everything slipped out of place and skidded down the wall. I was dangling again, this time on the ropes, with some fairly steep and green rock in front of me. I couldn't see a way to get back on the wall, to get established, and N was shouting up to D that I was off and he was shouting "What?" back. I bounced rightwards and found I could reach the hold that my feet had slipped off around to the right of the arête, and could haul myself up, just as D realised that I was weighting the rope and started taking it in. So I got back up to where I'd slipped, and I returned to the right of the arête and moved upwards on the gully side of it, and only crossed the arête leftwards further up, the left-upwards diagonal path that I should have taken the first time. It was then that I realised that D had had to lead up the outside wall another eight or ten metres before he'd been able to get any protection – he'd done the traverse and come around the arête and then still had to run it out some way, so if he'd have slipped where I had he'd have been hanging from that cam and nut in the slot on the traverse, and probably hanging in the air in the widening gully.

It was late afternoon and we were facing a shower of rain passing over, so we decided to get on Striptease (VS 5a**, 35m) because it's at the back of a narrow zawn-shaped gully and has several roofs in it, so a majority of the route stays dry even if it's raining. I elected to lead this one as a single pitch because I wanted to do something to reassure and reassert myself after that slip on The Fang, and because I didn't want to wait around getting nervous before seconding something. It's a big cracked, jagged corner/chimney, topped by a big tree with shiny polished-bark roots that come down like greased limbs and grip the loose-looking rock.

Striptease – it doesn't look particularly inviting but it's a lot of fun.

There's plenty of protection all the way through it – spikes and branch-like-roots can be slung at the top, and there are placements for big gear all the way up – but it also feels safe because there are so many points of contact at any time, as with many chimney-like corners. It starts up a crack for the hands, walking the feet high on the right wall. There are a pair of overlaps on the right wall before the groove narrows to reach a cramped cave under a roof. I had to rearrange my body several times, bumping my helmet against the roof, to try to find an optimal way to get out and up to the right: bracing my back against the left side and stepping my feet up the right, then reaching all the way across and up and pulling hard; laybacking up higher on to the next slab with a crack on the left for my hands until I could get balanced; bridging out both legs so I had a foot on each wall until I was high enough to step on top of the roof. I think I took some time working it out, but I didn't feel at all alarmed – great protection, a sheltered situation, and a wealth of choices. I got up to the tree and belayed from there, and we all abseiled down from there (there's a short and dirty continuation pitch but it was wet and overgrown and didn't look worth it).

The climbing so far that week had reassured me that I was comfortable leading VS, and the next day I was keen to try leading HVS. Our mate A drove down from Birmingham to join us in the morning, so we split into two parties of two, and since A and I were up and ready early we moved off together to get on Merlin Direct (HVS 5a***, 50m).

A took the first pitch – a vertical 4c romp up a cascading line of jagged holds coming down the buttress wall, and up onto a big wide platform. I swapped leads to take the 5a second pitch – it starts on a slabby wall at the back of the platform, following a crack line which gradually grows more indistinct as the wall ramps up steeper. I remember moving up from the shade of the trees and finding great gear placements under rounded flakes on the warm red rock, and it felt like a incredibly natural flowing sequence of moves. As the crack started petering out so there wasn't anywhere else to put any gear, it was clear that I'd have to make some committing manoeuvres to be able to get my fingers into a rising line of pockety features out across to the left. I told A to watch me as I chalked up, and he replied with some warmly reassuring comments. To be told "You're looking great, it looks like you're having a great time," just encourages you to respond with something positive, and that puts you in good frame of mind – I replied with something about how it was such an amazing position to be in it and how it all felt so good, and that made me realise that it was true, that I really was loving it, being out in the middle of a wall and not in some dank gully or corner. I gripped the last of the crack with both hands, stepped my left toe out high to the left to press it on to small edge, and pulled my right foot up higher into the crack below my hands, and then pressed off against it as I reached my left hand up and out, rocking over the left foot and slowly squeezing with my thighs to balance until I could get a grip on a pocket, as I let go with my right hand. I stepped my right foot even higher, to the top of the crack where my right hand had been, and felt myself swing into balance, and it felt amazing. I looked up the line of pockets and edges on the wall ahead, which stayed fairly steep but gradually leaned back at the final few meters, to where I could see a massively built bloke sitting in the sunshine on the wide top platform ledge with his bare feet dangling over the edge, watching me. He grinned and said "That looked awesome".

D and N were following us behind, but they'd had some sort of epic encounter on the first pitch, so A and I were already back at ground level as one of them, N I think, started to lead the second pitch of Merlin Direct. Somewhere part-way up it they dropped their carabiner with their set of nuts – a brief fumble and it was gone, pitching off at a funny angle and missing the wide halfway platform to land in amongst the greenery down around the left of the buttress. A and I spent half an hour beating around the boulders and nettles looking for it, while N had a nervous and wobbly time finishing the route with very few options for protection. I found the nuts on a high moss-covered shoulder of rock on the side of the buttress, and we left them with the rucksacks before moving on to our next climb. A wanted to get on something in The Slips area – he'd attempted something before, but couldn't remember what.

We went for Leg Slip (E1 5c***, 45 m) – I'd tried the first moves of the first pitch the year before when I'd been in this sector looking for the start of Nifl Heim, and I fancied having a proper go on it. I found it much more straightforward than I'd remembered or imagined – it's a gully groove that starts with very polished sloping holds, but after a few metres it becomes more positive and varied. I did a bit of wandering around at the top of the grove trying to work out which way I was supposed to go – the instructions were indistinct, and I couldn't really see a good place for a belay stance, or where the next pitch might start. I got set-up eventually, and A followed quickly but smoothly, commenting that it had been an impressive lead. I remember thinking that it hadn't been that challenging, but he'd seemed impressed all the same.

Then he lead off, reaching up and right, making some long moves across into a bold-looking shallow groove, and he disappeared from view. As I sat on the narrow sloping-slab of a stance his voice came around the corner saying that he was struggling to find some good protection for some tricky moves ahead, and I starting thinking gloomy thoughts about what could go wrong. He did some puffing and exclaimed in a surprised sort of way that it was much harder than he remembered – his voice sounded like he was chatting, and he said things like "Cor, that's no good" quite calmly, but it got me spooked because he's usually so laid back. I was imagining how difficult it was going to be for me if he was having a tough time on it. At around this point D and N appeared below and asked what we were on, and decided that they might follow us up. I was trying to pay attention to A above, and also to answer their questions – how was the first pitch, because they'd just had this nutless-adventure on Merlin Direct and N was feeling a bit shaky? how big is the stance, would it accommodate us all if they made it to where I was before I set off? how was A doing on the 5c pitch above, would D be okay with it? My attention was rather divided, but I think I managed to encourage them that N could manage the first pitch fine and that I'd be off the ledge before long.

Then A shouted down that he was at the finish – a tree on top of a final wall – and so I started to climb. The first moves felt exposed as they moved above the groove of the first pitch, but as I came around the corner I saw the shallow groove that had looked so bold looked very amenable, and it opened up towards a small bush and then became the right hand-side of a wide triangular-cut boxlike chimney, an open book capped by a huge roof. A's ropes went up the groove ahead of me to the right of this chimney, and then diagonally up left, hanging out across the interior space and then across the left-hand wall and around a mini-roof or notch in its outer left-hand edge a few metres further up, with no protection on the rope line between the right of the box and the other side of the left-hand arête. It had clearly been a bold lead. I managed to get up the groove, and stood on the right of the open corner with the huge roof several metres above. I worked my way across left in to the back of the corner and gingerly bridged my left foot on to the left-hand wall, which my memory tells me only had small edges and crimps on it. Pulling myself on to the left-hand wall was difficult, but by smearing my right foot higher on the right side, which was slippery at the inner-most point, I could get my weight and balance across. Then it was a question of pulling up on these edges and crimps and working out and up further diagonally left towards the smaller roof or notch on the outer edge of the left-hand wall. I remember shouting up to A to keep the rope tight as I got my hands to the notch because I wasn't sure I'd be able to get my feet on anything, but I'm not sure he heard me because I think he was talking to D and N down below. I stepped up into the space and as I worked around left to the final wall, which was steep but had good positive holds, it started to rain. D and N had just made it to the belay after the first pitch, and D didn't feel like trying the second pitch in the rain, so they arranged an abseil there and lowered off.

That evening A drove back – just a quick raid for him – while we went to the pub. The next day the rain arrived properly and we packed it in and drove to Birmingham. We'd set aside a week to climb, we'd been to two world-class crags, and we'd managed fewer than ten routes and nothing over E1. I can imagine that for some climbers that would count as some sort of failure, but the list-ticking goal structure that I imagine them to be using is so different from my aims. What I'd wanted and needed was a bit more mileage at VS to get me going on for leading HVS, a chance to climb and hang out with D&N and the bonus of having A on board as well, a lot of time playing lots of music to each other as we drove around, great drinking sessions playing Lingo in the kinds of pubs that Wales and the Peaks do well with decent beer and coal fires, talking a lot about our working lives and also about the content of our jobs (we all work in the same field) and about climbing and other hopes and fears. It's definitely good for me to spend time away from where I currently live and work, to be in England and Wales with my friends instead of back there without them. And if it means that we show up in people's home-villages looking like outdoors-activities tourists, coming in from outside as though we've some sort of entitlement to be there just because there's rock nearby, then I hope that some of those people who live there and whose eyes roll at every camper-van load of climbers that show up might also be better than I am at remembering that people who show up in their villages to do all sorts of things do so for all sorts of different reasons.