Page 20 - 1995 AMA Autumn

18
Sunnier Days
by Steve Wilson
on Stanage
Is it just me or is the weather really getting worse in the UK? Has the time come to pack our climbing gear and emmagrate to Australia? Just so we can feel the evening sun on our backs
whilst we solo around on the local crag. Or should we sack our gor- tex clothing that cost us a small fortune, and retire permanently into the climaticaly controlled world known as “ THE WALL!’.
I lay considering all of these options, and a few others, on the Peak District meet in June this year. Go down the pub and get wrecked, and end up boring each other to death with accounts of old routes. Gesticulating wildly so that on lookers in the pub would think the local day care centre was having its annual outing. By now the dri­ ving rain had started to find its way into my hiding place. The cause texture of the rock, slowing down the ingress of water. 1 watched as inch by inch the entire rock surface around me black­ ened with the wet.
That's it, you instinctively know when its not going to get better, and you just have to make the best on what is on offer. Clawing my way out of my hole and back onto the face to finish the route in the rain. I was not going to lower off, not out of some ethical suicide trip, but because I did not trust my gear. I really should learn how to use it all some day! Luckily for me it was only a couple of moves to the top. Were I swapped the slow dripping of the water in the cave. For the wind tunnel that is know as the top of Stanage Edge.
When I looked down to Paul Duke, who was belaying, he could not be seen. He had managed to dive into a cave and shelter with a girl. W'ho I latter found out was from Manchester. This made it hared to gain his attention.
Standing on top my mind churned over the numerous other days I had spent here. It has to be one of the finest crags in the hole of the UK. Sometimes over crowded, sometimes wet and windy but always challenging. There is truly something for everybody on the edge. In the setting sun, after a hard days climbing, you can wan­ der along the bottom of the crag and dream of climbs that would take you a life time to complete.
For now my problem was to get my gear back and get down to the
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Sunset on Stanage Edge.
Richard White on the crux of Telli E3 6a, Wall Buttress, Stanage Edge.
Long Lands in Hathersage for a brew and some good hot food. While Romeo hid in the cave I fixed a line and absailed down. There was a small stream now running down the face. Handy real­ ly, as most of my gear needed a wash, just as I did. I paused momentarily as I reached a friend. What a peace of gear. How many of us would wind our necks out on the gritstone if it was not there when we needed it. When placed quickly on the lead it can mean the di—erence between eating in the Long Lands or eating through a tube in Sheffield Hospital, and we all know where the food is better!
Decking out onto the wet gravel at the bottom of the route, the rope almost hidden in the mud. I felt glad that we had used Paul’s rope. That’s a point, were is he, Evall the silky smooth mouth of the Duke boy could not have picked up a girl in this location? But no, a muffled voice came from the cave to the left. I peered in to find Paul half way up in side the cave. Bridging between the only to dry peace’s of rock in the whole Peak District. There was no sign of the girl, and that made me feel better. We gathered our gear and made our way back down towards the car.
The mind is a wonderful thing, is how the saying goes. It only remembers the good times. Climbers must have this mixed up because we remember the really bad times with such vigour and enthusiasm. To us, they are the good times, the more there is to over come and endure the more we like it. This must surely be one of the challenges of climbing. We are play on the rock and in mountains that the weather has created and we should remember that we are just visitors.
ARMY MOUNTAINEER
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