Easter Weekend - Lake District

Over the the Easter holiday weekend I was up in the Lake District on the Network Gathering based out of GT. On the Friday afternoon I took a group out scrambling with Stu Spencer, Gassy and two punters, we did the ever classic pinnacle ridge on St Sunday Crag. The weather was superb, I didn't put a shirt on all day and had my pants rolled up to my knees.

Perfect weather, and no other parties on Pinnacle Ridge.

We were quite late in the day leaving the car park at only 3pm, but this ensured we had the ridge to ourselves. Everybody had a good time, and we got some fantastic views from the summit before a jog down the ridge and a few nice cold pints in the Patterdale hotel.

Saturday the weather wasn't as kind to us, with the clag being fairly low down so myself, Lewis, Nancy, Barry and Olly went and did the classic round of Crinkle Crags and Bowfell. Being a bankholiday weekend it was swamped with tourists so we didn't get much solitude, but at least we fitted in as I'd forgotten my boots so did the round in my flip flops - who needs £200 Sportiva boots?

Sunday we headed back to Langdale for some cragging. We staggered up to White Ghyll in sweltering heat and decided to do the climb the classic Slip Knot VS 4b **. The first pitch is fantastic face climbing steep all the way. The second pitch is the crux with a tricky but again well protected traverse out onto a hanging rib, a few moves pulling over this bulge get you to easier ground. An absolutely superb route. Next up we moved up to the upper crag and did The Slabs Route 1 S 4a ** which is given 4 pitches over 69m but we managed with 60m ropes, lots of long runners and a bit of alpine trickery do it one massive pitch. It felt great to be climbing continuously for such a long way.

First pitch of Zig-Zag, approaching the crux.

Monday, myself, Stu and Julie headed up to Castle Rock of Tiermain for the afternoon. First we did Via Media S+, its given two pitches in the guidebook but I quite happily lead in one long one. Next up we went to do Zig Zag VS 4b which has an awesome first pitch which climbs a leftward slanting ramp with some tricky moves here and there. Having left the guidebook at the bottom we made a slight navigational error and ended up doing the crux pitch of Overhanging Bastion VS+ 5a which, as it was the last time I did, absolutely superb. I wasn't too bothered about missing the second half of Zig-Zag as I'd done it before when I climbed May Day Cracks.

Julie following Overhanging Bastion.

I caught a lift home with Stubbs and Rachael, and as we'd been climbing that day, Imran's naturally followed in Lancaster.

All photos courtesy of Stuart Spencer.