The Roaches

I was down in Cheshire last weekend at a Scout Network event. On Saturday we headed over to The Roaches, just the other side of the M6. We had a group of novices with us so we rigged some ropes on the right-hand section of the Upper Tier, although we perhaps overestimated the ability of some of our climbers so moved them rightwards in the afternoon.

Bottom-roping with a group at the Roaches.

I escaped for a while with Stu Spencer and Charles Conventry, both keen climbers form Ormskirk Network and we got too good routes done. First we did Pedestal Crack HVD 4a which is quite a nice line following a flake crake and than through a break in the overhang leading to the top. We took the direct (left) start which warrants the 4a/Severe grade, you can start further to the right though where it is easier. Some guides suggest doing this in two pitches but we managed to run it together just fine in one.

Secondly we did the classic Black an Tans, S 4a which gets 3 stars. Its got some varied climbing and probably deserves its stars but was perhaps a little short for my liking, because, as we did it in two pitches each one was probably only 10-15m long. Still nice climbing though. As we got down from this the rain came in so we made a tactical retreat to the pub.

Pedestal Crack.

On separate note Connected, the Network event that we were at was ace, a lot of respect for all that turned up in Burgundy! You did us all proud.

I'm off to Chamonix tomorrow to round of the summers Alpine climbing, apparently theres a fair bit of snow around so we'll see what we get done, I'll try to blog with conditions while I'm there.