whilst the sun shines

Last week was forecast to be amazing up in the proper north. Luckily we had a few jobs to do up there so a plan was hatched to head up the road to the county for a few days. On sunday i pulled Ravensceugh out of my venue choice. A bit risky early in the year but the lack of wind made it look like an ok choice, plus we both had things to get on up there. after walking through about 1km of snow drift we arrived to a dry crag, aside from the odd top out and drainage streak). Even if one of us had ice blocks for feet (Ned finally found the limits of the Vans slip on as an all terrain shoe)

I love Ravensceugh, it has brilliant rock, one of the best views in the county and it still has alot of potential for boulders. Alot of it was looking like it hadn't seen any chalky digits for a good 5-6 months mind. But most of the countys quiter venues fall into this state. We spent a while warming up and pissing about on the sunny warm up walls. Then it was over to the Magician, I cleaned it as best i could from the plumber but the top rooflet was very Damp on top, turning the VS topout into a risky proposition at that height (10m)

Ned did the plumber and proceeded to attempt the top out for 15minutes of scrittle, small movement, crap pants, back off, recompose and go for it. eventually he ended up with 3 limbs and a chest over the top bulge on damp slidy holds unable to move up or down. After a bit of a hand to get over the top we decided that was enough to deter another top out attempt in the day. I demoed the magician and Ned promptly flashed the hard part and got greedy on the last tricky move, throwing hands and caution into the wind and onto a slopey edg. Unfortunately the previous nights chocolate pulled him backwards and it wasn't quite to be, 5 minutes later he was on the upper section but traversed off rightwards to avoid the slightly macabre sandstone scrittle travellator, even traversing off involved a bit of sketchy footwork on dirty rock. One for later in the year we decided. After that i opened a long overdue account on something i'd seen a while ago, but the sun seemed adamant on setting just as things were coming together. So it was back home to food, more food, and stretching

Another morning and another perfect day. Queens was Neds shout this time, although i still have many projects there. Ned'd had one fleeting visit a year ago and came away relatively empty handed. This time round things we're rather different. we warmed up around the rabbit stone and after a fair bit of brushing (again) things were looking up. After taking ages to do and clean the 7b warm up left of arc royal (which arc royearl links into) we decided after all that effort it was worth having a punt at arc royearl, Ned quickly got through the start using the better beta and was just popping off coming into the finish of the warmup he'd just done. 15minutes later and after a bit more brushing he'd whipped up it. The climbing on this is really fun and ground uppable, but it isn't arc royal, in the same way that doing the bottom of careless and finishing up not to be taken away isn't careless torque, its probably the easiest of the 8's at queens now too. Which we can safely say as Ned went on to dispatch Queen Kong and Red Dragon on the same day. which was a good laugh, there was even enough light to finish cleaning a project i'd started cleaning last year and to send that packing. (more on this later). Then it was back home to the fingerboard/ make that garage full of fingerboards, some people would be made up with 3 8a's (or there abouts) in a day, but for Ned it's starting to happen in the more oftens than the nots, and if you just see things as great blocs, and you still feel fresh when you get home then there aint no reason not to try and get a bit better at this climbing malarkey.

queens 2010 from beastmaker.co.uk on Vimeo.