Sometime earlier this summer, one of the club movers and shakers collared me at the club hut and said, “We’re running a novice course in September, are you coming?”

My first reaction was “Cheeky git! I know I’m crap, but I’m not *that* crap!”, but it turned out that what he actually meant was that he wanted me as one of various spare bodies to help shepherd people around when they weren’t doing the course, the two days of the course being aimed at two separate groups of people.

Fairy nuff.

A couple of days before the weekend, I had a little think. People in the weekly pub session had been making noises about slate quarries, and almost every time we end up sport climbing we seem to end up shouting the what-to-do-at-the-top instructions up the crag to someone who’s got to the top of the route and realised they aren’t sure how to get down. Trying to teach people what to do with a two-bolt belay without actually having the belay to play with doesn’t work very well (which is why people still end up being unsure and confused) , so I had a guddle around in the toolbox and came up with . . . a simulated crag top.

Of course, Sod’s Law then dictated that we then found some bolts at the right height for people to practice on! Which I shall bear in mind for future reference.

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 30
Sport Routes (led): 4
Trad Routes (seconded): 44.5
Trad Routes (led): 7.5
Trad routes (solo: 1)

Club meet at Llangollen, hindered somewhat by the campsite we’d booked into closing down three days before the meet and the last-minute replacement having a slope so severe you ended up sliding out of your tent and down the field if you weren’t careful. The organisational faff didn’t extend to the climbing, and we ended up at the bit of Trevor that’s too new to be in the guide. It was more than a little loose. On the other hand, it wasn’t polished. Which was nice.

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 24
Sport Routes (led): 2
Trad Routes (seconded): 44.5
Trad Routes (led): 7.5
Trad routes (solo: 1)

Andrew, it emerged, had never climbed on slate before. Not once. Not ever. This was a deficiency he was somewhat anxious to rectify, so we ended up at Dali’s hole in blazing sunshine and oven-like heat. “Hot” was an understatement, but fortunately we managed to find a patch of shade to hide in between routes. Dali’s being very user-friendly indeed (short walk-in, bolted routes at fat-weak-punter-friendly grades), we were able to just keep climbing, limited only by energy and enthusiasm starting to flag somewhat in the late afternoon.

The plan, hatched over beers the previous evening, was for there to be a barbeque at the club hut. We needed burgers. Judging from the bare, empty shelves in Tesco’s, it would appear that everyone else in the whole of North Wales had the same idea. Fortunately a quick investigation turned up some sausages and kebabs that had somehow escaped the ravenous hordes and hence saved us having to try to barbeque the pasta that had been the original plan for dinner.

The clear skies and blazing sunshine continued into Sunday: it seemed sensible to head for the sort of high, bleak, windy crags that normally feel like hypothermia central. So we headed towards the Moelwyns in general and Craig yr Wrysgan in particular.

We got there eventually. *Very* eventually. But on the plus side, the huge diversion round the roadworks took us through some gorgeously scenic bits I didn’t know were there – I shall have to go back there for a walk.

I hadn’t been to Craig yr Wrysgan before, so there was a whole new world of stuff to go at – we started with a very nice 4-pitch VDiff, and it was only when we’d finished it that we realised there was a whole load more rock up top . . . it’s a crag that comes in two tiers. We decided to investigate the top tier, Andrew spotted a HVS he liked the look of . . . game on!

So . . . a new crag visited . . . and we’ll be back.

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 13

Sport Routes (led): 1
Trad Routes (seconded): 33.5)
Trad Routes (led): 7.5)

Club meet on Dartmoor. Rocked up at the campsite on Thursday night and couldn’t find anyone. Went into the pub (well, it’d be rude not to, and have to go in there to pay for camping anyway) and still couldn’t find anyone.

Next morning . . . *still* couldn’t find anyone! I *have* got the right weekend, haven’t I?

No sign of climbing partners, so wander off towards Ingra Tor in search of geocaches. Lots to go at, might be able to get the 400th up if no-one else turns up. Back to the campsite – and now everyone’s turned up. Apparently they all arrived half an hour after I left in the morning, I must learn to restrain my enthusiasm!

Saturday saw us all rocking up at Sheepstor. Various other parties out, which is probably how my guidebook came to go missing – when everybody’s got the same one, it’s much too easy to pick up the wrong one by mistake. Led one route and seconded Andrew up a couple of examples of overhanging thuggery.

As for Sunday – all the fun of the circus! We ended up at Haytor, which was swarming with families, children, dogs, kites, frisbees, people asking daft questions, people tripping over ropes, people who think they know it *all*, plus the occasional example of obsolete equipment and vaguely iffy belaying. Aaargh, aargh, aargh! (Only been there in winter in the pouring rain before, didn’t know it got that popular.) Eventually escaped and went in search of more buried Tupperware.

So, what to do on Monday? Climbing club meet so really should go climbing, but am within spitting distance of cache #400 and want it to be a good one . . . sod it, tupperware time! Finished the day in a cramped, dark tunnel containing rather a lot of water and a plastic box, #400 in the bag, excellent!

(Score so far:
Winter Routes (survived): 3
Sport Routes (seconded): 5
Trad Routes (seconded): 6.5)
Trad Routes (led): 2.5)

I hadn’t been up Creigiau Gleision before. It’s one of those slightly off-the-beaten-track hills that doesn’t immediately spring to mind when planning a walk in Snowdonia. It only came to my notice because there was a geocache up there I hadn’t found yet.
Walked up there on Saturday and the view off the top was a cracker! Highly recommended.

Last Saturday saw the first official access for climbers to Shooters Nab in quite some time. As predicted by Sod’s Law, the crag was green as Kermit’s backside and the midges were swarming. So were the climbers - I’ve never seen so many people at a guidebook bash!

We only get a tiny handful of dates this year when we can access this venue, and this was the first. The problem is that part of the crag lies within the danger area for a shooting range and the shooting club, understandably, aren’t too keen on having people wandering around in an area where they could, if things go very wrong indeed on the range, get shot.

Moving the range is about as possible an option as moving the crag. The danger area behind the range is there for entirely sensible reasons - it is highly unlikely that anyone shooting in accordance with the safety rules will manage to send a shot a long way off the range, but range danger areas (on many other ranges in addition to this one) are specified so that said highly unlikely incident *still* won’t injure anyone when it eventually does happen.

So, full-time access for climbers probably isn’t going to happen unless the range closes. What *may* be achievable, however, is an arrangement on similar lines to that for the Wilton quarries, where it is known when the range is in use and climbers have access when it is not.

Here’s hoping.

Sunday, by contrast, saw a small group of dedicated (or possibly half-witted) people meeting up in a damp, green, filthy quarry. Very little done, but at least we put some belay stakes in which will constitute a vast improvement over tied off heather plants and half-buried nut keys.

I ended up with forty-seven midge bites (despite being marinaded in so much midge spray that I can still smell/taste it four showers later) and had to wash my tights twice to get the mud off. And there was cake.

Mmm, cake.

Saturday. Gloriously sunny weather. Climbing on lovely rough gritstone. No polish. No midges. No crowds. Cake. And, just to cap it all, we did a new route as well.

Yes, we were in the 21st-century Peak District, and no, I wasn’t dreaming.

We were at the Rollick Stones, a shapely little gritstone edge stuck in the side of a hill just outside Glossop. Martin and I were the only team on the crag, primarily there for the purposes of guidebook checking (”bright clothes and big butties, please”) but taking time to not so much savour as revel in gritstone as it used to be.

I bet Froggatt was heaving. Not to mention sweaty, midge-ridden and polished to death. Meanwhile, we had an entire crag to ourselves, and did I mention that we did a new route?

Nothing esoteric, just a pair of twin cracks that no-one seemed to have bothered to climb yet, which, once Martin had walked round the top and booted a couple of loose bits off the top-out, yielded a nice VDiff with a traditional stick-your-foot-in-your-ear-and-stand-up awkward finish.

We celebrated with cake.

We also struggled with, swore at and fell off some clear candidates for an upgrade, did a little cleaning and gardening, and found a gloriously photogenic leaning tower which I soloed, silhouetted on the skyline, smiling happily as the jugs just kept coming.

So, in short, Saturday was glorious. And then, on Sunday, we went to Crowden Great Quarry, which provided something of a contrast. The routes were steep, knackering, longer than usual for gritstone and needed a little care in places, adventure climbing boiled down and condensed into a single pitch, climbers launching themselves skywards to escape the depths of the quarry bottom. Routes were started with a cautious undercurrent of excitement, the eventual outcome still in doubt, and finished with a sense of having done something a little out of the ordinary. Once again, traditional crowded polished grit it wasn’t.

To avoid the polish and sweaty hordes, all we had to do was go a very little off the beaten track, look at a different book and accept a slightly longer walk-in and the exciting possibility of a bit of an adventure. And it really was worth it.

Try it sometime. You might like it. I may even bring cake.

Earlier this year, I had a sudden and painful attack of social responsibility, and so I did two things – I wrote to my MP about the ongoing situation at Longstone Edge, and I went to a work meet at Horseshoe Quarry. Both of these were entertaining, in their own way – the MP (who I would suspect divides her time between London and her constituency on the outskirts of Birmingham) appeared to be having some trouble with the concept of a park containing any plant larger than a stinging-nettle or serving any function other than that of a receptacle for litter, fighting youths and canine bowel movements, while the Horseshoe bash was enlivened by free cakes and various people being shouted at by the Safety Lady for going too near the Dangerous Rocks (5+), picking up litter the wrong way, and being within 90ft of the chainsaw man without having attended an official chainsaw-watching course. All good fun, and the sort of thing that leaves one with a warm fuzzy glow of Doing The Right Thing.

So, to summarise – I spent a day making a quarry nicer to climb in, and I complained about the expansion of another quarry.

I went for a walk past the huge quarry at Longstone Edge recently. It’s got bigger since the last time I was there. Quite a lot bigger, actually.

But I am ashamed to admit that my first response was not “Omigawwd! It’s an outrage! Our national parks are being KILLED TO DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” but “Hmm, looks like a nice line over there, wonder what grade it’d get?”

I’d suspect I’m not the only passing climber to have had that reaction.

Before anyone gets the flamethrower out, I certainly don’t think we need any more quarrying at Longstone Edge, and I don’t think that the Peak National Park, or indeed any other National Park, needs any more huge muddy holes in the ground.

But, in many years time, when the dust has finally settled and quarrying on Longstone Edge has long since finished, I can see the climbers colonising, the bolts appearing (Gary Gibson will probably be awfully old by then, but I’m sure it’s possible to invent a zimmer-frame-mounted bolt gun), and then parties of 22nd-century volunteers turning up to eat cakes, pick up litter and be shouted at by the Safety Lady. There may even be chainsaws.

I wasn’t around when it happened, so I don’t know for sure, but I do sometimes wonder how much fuss people made about Furness, aka Horseshoe, Quarry when the hole first started being dug? Come to that, I wonder how much fuss was made about the quarried areas of Froggatt at the time?

I think it will be interesting to see how the Great Longstone Edge Row looks in many years time – as a great environmental crime (which, from today’s point of view, it is), or as the creation of a new venue.

However, speaking from today’s point of view . . . the sooner they stop digging, the better.

The boulders stand in a typical urban park, hemmed in by Victorian terraces and the railway line. An old woman, well-wrapped against the rain, plods slowly along the path while her small hairy dog lifts its leg against the rusting goalposts. Hidden amongst the dripping trees, the boulders are new, as yet un-graffitied, the muddy scars their construction has gouged into the grass yet to heal.

You could almost imagine someone being murdered here, the scene immortalised in grainy newsprint monochrome, one abandoned trainer lying forlornly like a memorial to hope. But, then again, hope has led someone to construct – and pay for – five small concrete boulders, which are the whole reason for my being in this muddy wasteland on a wet Saturday afternoon.

We are in Northamptonshire, a county whose principal – and indeed only – entry in a climbing guide is the truly execrable Finedon Slabs. The only climbing walls date from the era when gluing bits of polished rock to the side of a sports hall was considered state-of-the-art. And now we have boulders. Not good boulders, not high boulders, not boulders with interesting features, not boulders with holds other than jugs – but they are, at least, better than nothing.

As a climber, I have a fascination with such things, and so I have sat through an hour-long bus journey and come squelching out into the park to investigate. An hour spent traversing around the boulders, hands numb with the cold, around and around and around like a zoo inmate pacing the cage, and it’s time to pack up and squelch off in search of a bus home.

Why do I do this? It isn’t real climbing. It’s of doubtful value as training. But it is a structure intended for climbing . . . and so, to a climber, this means that it Must Be Climbed.