Wow! two good weekend forecasts in a row! It looked too good to miss, so I put out an email and Cef and Dave S responded. Foolishly I invited Dave S to pick the crag, his little ears perked up and before I knew it we were heading off for a bouldering session at Bridestones in West Yorkshire, plus Rob who had given up on his mission to find some sucker – I mean climbing partner – to do hard mountain routes with him in wales. Arriving at the crag around 11.30, we found everything somehow seemed quite tough for the grade, but maybe that's just because we are rubbish. Anyway, after a slabby warm up we got stuck into The Groove, a rather highball little number whose most annoying feature was that after a tenuous start excellent holds were easily reachable by Cef and Rob, but still way above me. After the obligatory height whinge, I cheated by starting to the right of the route proper, then we all moved on to other things. Then.. Dave arrived and spoiled it all by cruising the start even though he is also a short arse, so honour demanded another attempt.
And so a saga began… teeter, dyno, miss, swear, teeter, dyno, miss, swear, repeat till fingertips bleeding and rest of group giggling hysterically. I did feel very satisfied when I finally latched that poxy hold, not sure if it was more pleasure at getting the proper tick or pleasure that I could finally stop doing the wretched thing.
Anyway, time to move on from that buttress. Fun and games were had up various aretes, scoops, tenuous mantels and fingery walls, including a game of follow-my-leader instigated by Cef doing repeat traverses round and round the top of a small block – I am amazed he could walk in a straight line by the time he had finished three circuits.
Dave developed an obsession with Duck(supposedly 4c- yeah, right), which involved umpteen "just one more try's", all culminating in a flailing bail-out leap from the crux, until eventually Rob gleefully prepared to capture the anticipated flight on film. This was the motivation Dave needed, he somehow udged and cranked up the scoop on a miniscule pebble and impressive series of grunts and robbed Rob of his pic.
Gradually the sharply crystalline grit took its toll. One by one the slopy holds eroded the skin from our fingertips and various other body parts – the yelps from Rob as he slithered down a wall sandpapering his shin were startling. By the time the sun was setting there were bloody smears on Cef's guidebook from our bleeding tips. We were thoroughly cream crackered and aching, having done only a small fraction of the routes at our grade – there were still pages and pages in the guidebook we hadnt turned. Fantastic bouldering venue, brilliant friction, mostly good landings, a shame its such a long (1 1/2 hour) drive from York. Back via curry at the Kashmir in Bradford, then on to York for the tail end of Andrew and Karen's pub crawl.