The Peak District It's Not Just About Stanage

During the recent heatwave I spent 5 days in the Peak District for Freddies birthday. As we had so much time we decided to head to Staffordshire to climb at the roaches, this is an amazing temple of gritstone it is one of the greatest places to climb in the UK. But due to the intense heatwave we ended up also exploring some of the shadiest crags in the Peaks. So what is this blog about well its about exploration of already explored territory going into the known unknown. In other words it is pointless just like climbing.

I've visited the roaches a few times before and always been super impressed with the quantity of quality lines. Been a slab lover it has some of the most enticing lines I've seen, which meant I was super psyched, unfortunately the weather was way to hot for friction smearing. So upon arrival I managed to climb Sloth a super intimidating HVS that I had fallen off on a previous trip due to rain soaking the upper jugs. It is the line of the crag and maybe the line on grit, super easy, super scary and super fun. I was ultra stoked to get this as its been on the cards a while. This was one of the only trad routes I managed in the whole 5 days we were away. It was so hot that bouldering in the shade was the only way we could keep from dying of heatstroke, especially with our resident ginger shade was imperative.

Me On Sloth Photo By Freddie

On the Sunday having spent the Saturday trying to follow the shade around the Roaches we head to Chee Dale to fail on slippery limestone. This may sound like a stupid plan but it was shaded and most importantly had a river to run into in a desperate effort to cool down. Walking down the Dale we were all struck with how beautiful and otherworldly it felt. This densely wooded dale with white bastions of limestone felt like a far cry from the desolate moors above Stanage yet it was less than 20 miles away. Wandering through the dale looking at the guidebook we noticed most routes were above our current limit, but this left us inspired and feeling a want to improve just to be able to climb in such a stunning place. We were wondering why Peak Limestone gets a bad reputation I assume its the polish, looseness and lack of classic easy lines. But the ability to climb in such beautiful locations is surely a good enough reason to utilise the limestone we have.

Another way to avoid the heat was to climb at night as it was Freddies birthday on the Sunday him me and Oscar decided to climb Valkyrie a classic VS at the Roaches. They were both stoked, I was knackered internally unwilling but my sense of adventure was to strong to turn it down. We got to the base around 11pm and soloed the easy first pitch. Because it was his birthday Freddie got the lead of the classic second pitch. Freddie having never lead the route before and due to the darkness managed to find a 5c way round a 4c move, claiming it to be harder than the dangler( a classic Joe Brown E2) he found a place to belay and started to get it ready. Unfortunately sitting on a belay ledge only increased my tiredness and due to the nature of the pitch (a traverse above an overhang) it was inadvisable to fall off. So when it came to seconding and feeling like someone had just woken me up, I managed to abandon any technique and just scrap my way through, much to the horror of Oscar who was watching from the belay ledge. The other two only noticed my tiredness when we were walking down and I was mumbling about tories and anarchism. Not taking the hint they decided they felt up for another climb, Central Climb(HS 4c) on Hen Cloud. I elected to lead the first pitch (only 4b but I had backed down soloing it early in the day). It was easy but I felt revived and ready to smash through it, until I'd sat on a belay ledge for another 30 minutes. I did manage to haul myself to the top and it was a great adventure with great friends so it was worth it. Probably.

Suffering but still smiling Photo by Freddie

Another brilliant crag we visited was in the Churnet Valley another shady beautiful valley not far from Alton Towers. It seems to be one of the only Sandstone crags in the Peaks(unless you count grit as a type of sandstone) even though it isn't really sandstone, its more like conglomerate loads of pebals magically held into the rock and loads of holes where pebbles once were. This provides such a great contrast to the slippery limestone and the skin destroying grit all the while in an idyllic Jurassic setting. The climbing is mainly bouldering on big blocks with really great rock and a very sandy base we spent all day there and the approaches are easy and the climbing is super lovely pockets and pebble pulling. The only issue is sometimes you develop option paralysis due to the over abundance of holds. A great crag that was really good for shaded bouldering.

Sloth in Sunset Photo By Me

So what is the point well I think what I'm trying to say is don't get sucked into going to the same crag over and over, even in a concentrated area such of the Peak District as we discovered there is such variety of rock, style and countryside. As we found out there is more to the Peaks than Stanage, so as climbing is inherently an exploratory sport go and explore the explored and go into the known unknown.

Sorry there hasn't been much climbing in this blog but it was like 90 million degrees and we just sat in the shade bouldering in between dying of heatstroke. It was a great weekend though celebrated Freddies birthday in style with Oscar, Cindy, Sophie and Jessie all failing in Chee Dale.