Quote of the day from Pia (Erin and Daniel were too young to comment). Followed closely by the unique experience of being reminded to moderate our language by Sweary Ian so as not to teach Pia any new words that she has'nt already learnt from her dad.
There has been a mini population boom in the york climbing community over the summer, so its becoming increasingly common for climbing days to include buggies and nappy changes! But with a few people around it all works remarkably well, with people taking turns to keep an eye on the rugrats – in fact some of us were quite happy for the excuse to sit and have a brew and gossip between routes. And Pia seemed very happy padding up her first (very slabby) slabs and trotting round with Ians pink rope like a favourite toy.
Meanwhile, the grownups got some routes done. First of all we all udged our way up Squeeze Crack – we soon discovered why the name, and there was much subdued (and cleaner than usual) cursing as we all discovered we were fatter than we thought. The a similar mass assault on Sculptured Wall, an interesting but oddly protected (you need a megacam and a camalittle!) route with a precarious finish. VS 5a in the book. Team Meredith then headed off for a new route of Helen's involving tea and cakes, while the rest of us moved on to Frensis (a VS of almscliffian thugginess)- I cunningly persuaded Dave S to lead this, being too chicken myself. Dave also demonstrated the "heroes finish" leaping from the top onto the next pinnacle along. Shedding Team Sweary and Dave S, who had to dissappear, I then convinced Rob to lead Roadside Crack, an off width E1 which is well protected providing you have a dustbin lid sized cam (I do). Finally, having lured everybody else into leading the hard stuff (mwa ha ha har) I donned the pink helmet and headed for an easy warm down, Turtleneck Crack (HS 4b) before home.