Midweek skiving saw Peri, Carmen, CourtnAy and I head south to the Peak on thursday in the sunshine. We eventually decided upon Stanage Far End (closest to us) and unsurprisingly had it to ourselves.
The End Slab was as green and greasy as a tree frog, never known it that bad and it only caught the sun as we were leaving so no time to dry out, but the rest of the crag was dry and clean. Peri tactfully avoided the Vice and mopped up all the close by route with CourtnAy alternating leads on various S and VS.
Carmen choose Dr's Saunter VS 4c *** an indirect start to Surgeons Saunter) 'hmmmm bit of a reputation these routes thinks I'. It's fair to say she struggled (gallantly) to the top and probably also fair to say its feckin hard for VS and probably has a 5a move as well.
After a spot of lunch I did Old Salt (HVS 5a ***) an excellent route with a tricky start and steep finish but tons of gear and Peri and CourtnAy ticked the nice ungradeable (used to be Diff now VS/HVS 5b/6a !) offwidth Nursery Crack with the CamaHuge deployed (see pic).
We finished up a few solos and Carmen leading Feb Crack and me leading Drs Chimney which CourtnAy had previously done (and Peri snaffled the crag-swag that Carmen had spotted during her siege).
To round of the day we had a 30 min battle trying to remove a cam – epic fail 🙁
I would like to quote CourtnAy's response to the suggestion that Nursery Crack should be V Diff with a Camahuge for protection, but I couldnt possibly repeat such language in a respectable blog. Lets just say it was a bit of a struggle, and both her and me lay gasping and panting like netted codfish after topping out.
Carmen's photos:
http://climbing.me.uk/StanageEnd0911/index.html