As part of route-checking for the new gritstone guidebook, a few of us nobly sacrificed the chances of a quality day's climbing and made the journey across the M62 to Darby Delph. After ten minutes standing around getting wet, the next hour or so was spent in the pub drinking tea and coffee while waiting for the heaviest rain to subside. Some might say that this was the best part of the day, but that would be unfair – any climbing is better than no climbing!
It was dry when we got back to the crag. Or rather, it wasn't raining – the crag itself proved the guidebook wrong ('quick drying') and stayed resolutely wet all day. A couple of sections managed to almost dry out, but the crag takes a lot of drainage and most of it remained dripping (or pouring) with water. Therefore our climbing was restricted to the section to the right of Booth Dean Arete. These routes are all pretty similar, being a series of small steps up a poorly protected steepening wall, with the cruxes at the top (partly because it's steepest there, but mainly on the day due to wet rock / sand / earth / grass). At the left of this section there is also the hazard of some sandy suspect rock.
Rob and Peri climbed Booth Dean Arete (HVDifff), or rather they meant to, but actually took a line a metre or so to the right called Organe (VDiff). I've done them both, and they're pretty identical in terms of difficulty and quality, even though the arete is allegedly a 2-star route! Rob and I both led Rogane, just to the right – poorly protected with some very worrying rock near the top. Most people did varying permutations of the three routes to the right again, all of them basically the same climbing with varying amounts of gear.
Ian bravely/foolishly led Half Done (VDiff), which comprised easy (Diff-ish) climbing up rock, followed by a VS exit up steep grass – Peter was almost as traumatised by it when seconding. Then I brought matters to an end by even more foolishly leading Little One (VD) – unprotected climbing to a cave / sandpit / waterfall, followed by exposed moves left which might have been well protected, but all the gear-cracks were lined with half an inch of wet sand and so were rather more worrying than they might have been.
Then we went home, with the classic crag remaining undiscovered.
There is some reasonable climbing here, but it's all unremarkable and rather characterless, most of the routes being pretty much the same. It's possibly that the sections I've not climbed on yet are better, but I'm not putting money on it.
Some more photos here, which somehow manage to make the crag look better than it is.