Despite being in the middle of a long dry spell, once again the weather failed co-operate on the club's latest camping trip to the Lakes. It rained on the Friday morning, so our planned sunny evening climbing on the way over turned into a hurried ascent of Quayfoot Buttress (possibly the dirtiest 2-star VDiff in the country) before the rain resumed.
On Saturday everything was wet, and the hills were in cloud, so climbing was off the agenda, and a surprisingly large band of 4 (Debra, Peter, Carmen, and me) opted for my plan of doing Lorton Gully on Grasmoor. A 3 star grade 3 scramble when dry, or a way for climbers to scare themselves when wet. We all expected it to be a bit slippery, but we were all taken by surprise by the complete lack of friction on most of the route. We should probably have been warned off when I started skating on the horizontal slabs at the start, but made of sterner stuff we continued.
I took the first section direct, while the others sensibly went round. I was still just about alive at the end of that bit so they threw caution to the wind and followed up the rest of the gully. We roped up for much of it, which was just as well as there were several falls (though no submissions). The worst bit was when my inadequate belay was shown for what it was, and I was pulled bodily through a juniper bush when Peter came off, luckily the main sling round the sturdy trunk stopped me (and him) before disaster.
Eventually, after some 4 or 5 hours, we reached the end of the gully (only 300 metres or so above the start!), and the route changed to more conventional scrambling up dry and grippy rock on the NW ridge. A series of false summits eventually led to the top, before a fine descent back to Buttermere via Whiteless Pike.
Meanwhile, the others (Margaret, Annie, and Dave D) did a walk from Fleetwith Pike along the High Stile ridge, which sounded like the sort of thing that's enjoyable at the time rather than with a couple of weeks' hindsight.
The next day we reverted to more conventional fare, with a trip to Gillercombe Buttress. Carmen and I managed the eponymous Severe, which was excellent (and much, much easier than Lorton Gully!) until the midges arrived on the last pitch. Debra and Dave retreated after the first pitch of a slippery Diff and went to Bowderstone Crag instead (where they were duly rained off). An Peter went up Grasmoor again with the others, this time by a more conventional route!