{"id":1312,"date":"2011-04-06T22:49:26","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T21:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=1312"},"modified":"2022-04-11T21:44:15","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T20:44:15","slug":"gearing-up-for-grit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/gearing-up-for-grit\/","title":{"rendered":"Gearing up for grit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The call to climb came in at 10:30PM on Friday, and so Saturday morning involved an early dog walk in the rain followed by an optimistic trip to the Peak. Fortunately the day didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

Travelling north to pick up G, it turned from rainy in Burton to drizzly in Nottingham, to cloudy-but-bright at Baslow. We met up with some friends of G’s (who all turned out to be thoroughly nice people), and wandered up to the Gun Buttress area via a rather vegetated ‘footpath’. The others went off to Gullies Wall, while we started off on Gun Chimney<\/em><\/a>, a short HVDiff which was just awkward enough for me to question why I ever bothered visiting grit. This was followed by the VS Pensioner’s Bulge<\/em><\/a>, which I think is the first Whillans route I’ve ever done. It was suggested that swearing, casual racism and sexism, and a flat cap might help us with an ascent in the traditional style, and the lack of all those things is my excuse for coming off just below an overlap with a big reach up. After a short rest I figured an alternative sequence to that taken by G, and very pleased with it I was too.<\/p>\n

\"G

G enjoying the layback on Grounded Bees (VS 5a). Copyright Haydn Williams 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

We then went to find the others, and had a play on a VS, Grounded Bees<\/a><\/em> (there was actually a bumble bee at the top of the route who couldn’t fly. Weird.) and two HVSs next to them (Renaissance<\/a><\/em> and Resurgence<\/a><\/em>). Tony joined us for these, which where much more delicate and called for far more finesse than our first two routes. I then heroically plucked up the courage to get back on the sharp end for the first time in six months and led a Diff and a VDiff, before soloing another VDiff (Broken Buttress<\/a><\/em> – I’m not sure how it got that grade because it was really easy).<\/p>\n

\"The

The girls under blue sky on Gullies Wall. Copyright Haydn Williams 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

After getting my fill of grit and feeling suitable prepared for the summer ahead, I took the opportunity to go for a brief run from Baslow over to Birchen, where I knew some friends were climbing. I found Dave and Alison escaping the crowds at the far western end of the edge, while Chris and Ben were in the middle of a multi-pitch version of the classic Powder Monkey Parade<\/em><\/a>. Arrangements were hastily made to rendezvous in the pub later, and I nipped back to Baslow to re-join everyone else. They wanted the traditional “one last route”, so I returned to the car to get changed. It turned out that the “one last route” took an hour, but I wasn’t complaining as it gave me time for an old-man power nap.<\/p>\n

\"Considered

Considered moves from me on Grounded Bees (VS 5a). Photo by Tony Higginson.<\/p><\/div>\n

A quick drink in the pub turned into two and a half hours, and was followed by fish and chips at Stu’s house and chatting until the early hours. For a day that started in the rain and was organised less than 12 hours in advance, I’d say that’s a pretty good outcome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The call to climb came in at 10:30PM on Friday,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[573,58,574,396,346],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-baslow-edge","tag-climbing","tag-gun-chimney","tag-running","tag-trad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}