Club trip was to Wharncliff as we can climb until 9ish but Peri had some time off and I moved a meeting so we could escape early. Simon, Carmen, Dave and Gordon arrived at a more usual time and stayed around the main edge, but apart from a few txts we were incommunicado so I am not sure what they did.
Our journey started badly, stuck behind a small town being transported along the A64 at 40mph meaning we didn't get to Wharncliff until quite late. With Himmelswillen on Peri's tick list we warmed up soloing the routes on the black slab and variants then onto the main event. Sunshine and blue skies accompanied Peri's grunts and she made the lovely moves around the overhang to the flake and laced it with gear. All goods moves and worth repeating now she has finally ticked it.
I had a hankering for a brace of VS ** off the beaten track. We soon found Pocket Buttress VS 4b ** , some signs of a recent visit but not much traffic. A good cleaning and an indirect start (avoiding the 4c/5a direct unprotected moves) to the pockets and gear, followed by a lovely traverse and moves up onto the nose. Really good varied climbing and worthwhile.
Next was Scarlett Crack VS 4c/5a ** – some 200m further on, except it's not it's 330m, so we took an age to find it, but Peri got some fungus for later consumption. It's actually not that hard to find – from the Outlook boulders go 300m to a HUGE (car sized) cubish block behind a tree by the path waiting to fall off, in another 50m you will see large the pinnacle with small tree on top, down on your right, jungle bash your way down to it.
The front face is clean apart for the start of our route and some ferns. Peri made a meal of the start muttering some heightist rubbish 🙂 the rest of the route is a joy and went without a hitch. Getting down is entertaining but easy and short lived.
Now dark we had the long walk (must be 1K or so) back to the pylons and back through the woods, head torches helping, surprised we didn't see S+C on one last route.
