Me, rachel and graham went off to bridestones for sunday afternoon (the upstart west yorkshire version, not the Dalby version). For those of you who havnt been there before, its a really lovely bouldering venue, a collection of oddly shaped gritstone boulders and low buttresses scattered over the edge of a high moor overlooking a valley. There are problems of all grades from ungraded introductory and warm up routes, to V silly, and even some micro routes (but thats not what anyone really goes there for). The landings could not be better, mostly flat ground with soft springy turf, its a lovely place to spend those autumn and winter days when its getting a bit brisk for routes.
We started off on a few very easy warm ups then gradually moved the gear up a little – only a little, as neither rachel or me are exactly hard core boulderers. We put the mats to the test when I popped off a problem at the very top, clocking up about 8-10 feet of air time – I'm please to report that the mats were every bit as soft and bouncy as you could wish. Somehow it became 4 o clock and we had only visited three buttresses, and only done a sample of the low grade problems (vb to v2) on those. The grades certainly felt stiffer than their equivalents at the indoor wall – no jug ladders here , just lots of undercuts, slopers , laybacks and mantels. It was like being a kid at the sweetshop, although a lot more tiring. After a couple of hours my forearms felt like wet spaghetti and both rachel and graham were complaining of sore fingertips. Next week we hope to follow up with a bloddering session to Widdop, a nearby crag which makes a useful alternative if bridestones is too windy. And I'm told that the grading is a bit softer – I'll believe it when I see it ;-D