The Bank Holiday Monday random weather guess said "best weather in the north" so we headed for the North York Moors, completing a hat trick of three separate areas and rock types over the three day weekend. Peter had suggested Ingleby Incline, a sandstone crag which Simon and Carmen had visited once and gave us advance warning that some of the routes were seriously undergraded. We also had advance warning that the crag catches the wind and can get very cold. Both warnings turned out, unlike the gradings, to be totally accurate. Past access problems mean the crag hasn't had a lot of traffic before, so the usual whinging and griping about unrealistic grades has not taken place – something we did our best to make up for over the course of the day. The gold medal for sandbagging went to "Wall and Groove" a supposed VS4c which we agreed (after top-roping the thing since it was totally unprotected) was probably around E1, but a silver was awarded to its buddy, Crack and Groove, a humorously graded 'severe' which Will had to call for a rescue rope on. Simon has done this route on his previous visit (when he regraded it MVS 4b) and said he used a nut key to dig out a crucial finger crack, however it was now filled to the brim with mud again and Will had neglected to include a shovel in his rack.
As usual, Simon and Carmen were the most hyperactive, whizzing through 8 routes including the excitingly thinly protected and delicate Rack and Pinion Variation (VS4c), Humble Beginnings (allegedly HVD, we thought Severe), Easter (M), Twister (VS masquerading as Severe), Back Lash (Diff), Helix Slab (HD) and the already mentioned Wall and Groove. However Simon's finest contribution to the day was a minor epic on the crag classic, the 3 star V Diff Cosy Corner. Not only was his shin-bone connected to his knee-bone and the knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone, the knee-bone was also securely connected to the off-width crack and took ten minutes to release even with the aid of a lowered rope from above and a sling to stand in. Strangely he did not seem interested in Cefyn's helpful offers to lend him a knife for emergency amputation.
Meanwhile Peter and Will managed six – Humble Beginnings, Easter, Cosy Corner, Chock Crack (VS 4c), Wall and Groove plus Greenhow Chimney, a 2 star Diff chimney. Both Peter and Will claim this was "actually a great little route, very traditional". Pete added that despite the lack of gear it was utterly safe as it was so narrow "all you had to do was breathe in to be securely wedged" (probably something to do with the pie suppers and curries we ate the previous two evenings). However none of the rest of us could really comment as we gave it a wide berth on account of the large amounts of luminous green slime coating the bottom, like an accident in a Swarfega factory.
Me and Cef also managed five/six routes in all, including Humble Beginnings, Chock Crack, Rack and Pinion Variation, and Cosy Corner (being careful not to put any fragile body parts near the knee-eating crack ) . Finally, we ran out of steam after catching up with the others at Wall and Groove/Crack and Groove. I then had a Moderate sleep curled up for ten minutes in the bilberries before waking up just long enough to join the queue to top rope Crack and Groove (no-one else was tempted to try leading it) and then Wall and Groove.
Final thoughts on the crag? Some interesting routes, Chock Chimney, Rack and Pinion and Cosy Corner being among the best, but you had to be very careful about the gradings – there were some serious sandbags. Some of the unstarred routes were pretty scrappy and uninspiring – one described as "tree choked" would not have been possible to climb at all as the tree growth filled the entire route. The crag would be improved by a bit more traffic to get the gradings sorted out, clean some of the routes up a bit and make a few paths between the buttresses. On the other hand there were certainly no problems with polish! Oh, and a ski-lift thingy to carry your gear on the 40 minute uphill walk in would be nice, too.
Some more photos of the day can be found here.