The Stanage VS Challenge - a two thirds-successful attempt.

Me, climbing sideways on "Rubber Band", route 9 of 24.

Yes, I know, technically speaking being two thirds successful is still a failure, but lets try to take an optimistic view on life eh? So here's what happens when myself and my mate Tony had a go at the Stanage VS Challenge.

I've spent a fair bit of time at Stanage over the last year; I was always a bit sniffy about gritstone previously. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with it, but there are lots of British (well, English) climbers who don't seem to see much past it. Grit climbing is great, but if you start your climbing in a non-gritty area of the UK, you can see there are lots of other types of British rock and British climbing. Yet, for Sheffield residents it IS just very convenient. 20, 25 minutes in the car and you have thousands of routes, at all grades, many with real historical resonance too. And so I've been going lots, and as a result getting lots of routes climbed. Of all the grit crags, Stanage is the most impressive. It is so popular and well known, it's almost a cliche; but when you stand on the top of cliffs at "Popular End" and watching the edge sweep away northwards - about 6 kms, not unbroken but pretty consistent cliffs along that stretch - it really is one of the most impressive sights in England. But it is not the Alps though, or the high mountains of the Norwegian Arctic. Few of Stanage's rock climbs reach 20 mtrs in height. If you want to have a BIG day out climbing, you are going to have to climb a LOT of routes. 

Stanage Popular End, on a nicer afternoon.

I'm not quite sure why Tony and I decided we should do something challenging in an endurance way like this. Tony's finger is recuperating, stopping him from hard sport climbing currently but he is still very 'climbing fit' as long as he doesn't have to crimp hard. I had read about the VS Challenge since moving to Sheffield and having done a number of the routes involved, fancied my chances. John Roberts, whose blog post seems to be the modern spark for this silly idea, has set the rules: all the routes on Stanage that get the grade VS (Very Severe) and have stars. Stars, normally *, ** or *** are given in guidebooks to denote quality of climbs, three being the best. The grade VS, despite sounding, well, very severe is actually very much a 'mid grade' these days. Most keen climbers will get to climb VS with experience and practice, even if they don't train at a climbing wall or have much natural ability. Many young climbers climb VS very quickly and progress well past it. Nevertheless it retains some historical cache, as "serious" grade for "serious" climbers and VS climbs on gritstone can often be quite brutal or physical, even if you don't need seriously strong finger strength to do them. One quirk of the challenge is it is based on the 1989 Stanage guidebook - there are probably more starred VSs in the newest guidebooks BUT there are a few "sandbags" (routes harder than their given grade) in the 1989 list, so you need to be willing to climb a bit harder than your normal VSs to do the challenge. The rules also state no soloing, all climbs are to be led or seconded by a team. This seems very sensible, soloing with tired arms is not a great idea.

Route 13, Mississippi Buttress Direct

We arrived at Stanage at 7 am, first car in the often full car park. We were climbing within 10 or 15 minutes. We decided to start at Popular End thinking we would do those routes early and avoid any queues. The first climb is Heather Wall, which is one of the first routes I did at Stanage sometime back in the 90s. Easy. Tony led the first five routes, then I did a block of five leads. I'm not sure if its true, but this is deemed to be quicker than alternate leads. The first routes where I seconded flew past, but we also cocked up - I had marked up the guidebook making easy to see on each page which route we needed to do, but in my haste I didn't look carefully enough at the topo-photo for Narrow Buttress and we shot up one climb only to realise we had done the wrong line. Tony quickly rectified this and blasted up the real Narrow Buttress, but it wasted probably 15 or 20 minutes. 

Route 14, Louisiana Rib

I took over the leading at Central Trinity, a route I've done before once or twice and really like. Solid hand jams, easy to place mid-sized cams. Bang - done. Bring Tony up. Hargreaves’s was next, a route I had led nearly 15 years ago on one of my last days in England before moving to Helsinki and starting that phase of life. It was a bit more delicate than I remembered, but perhaps I'm just more of a wuss now. Inverted V - another one I had done back in 1999, the year I started my PhD in Manchester - feeling like half a lifetime away. Ellis's Eliminate was my first onsight of the day (a route I hadn't climbed before). Not much for your feet on the traverse but solid if slightly odd horizontal hand-jamming. The next route is Rubber Band, again onsight for both of us and yet more weird horizontal jamming. Tony’s next block of leads included the first “mystery route” – Via Roof Route. It isn’t in my Rockfax guide and the description in the BMC guide is a bit confusing. The lower slab is very technical, Tony did a great job balancing up it on the lead with no gear in. It was spitting rain by the time Tony led Hell Crack (route 15) and then I took over to do the tricky Stepladder Crack (route 16). The next route was the Nose, which I found hard work and a bit scary – I’m glad to have done it, but didn’t enjoy the process. As we walked to the next route, The Punk, it started chucking it down. We pulled on waterproofs and hid under the big roof that the Punk traverses. Psyche was low for me at this point but it was a good excuse for a rest, food and coffee. The rain stopped, but more grey clouds were racing across from the Kinder Plateau. The strong winds did mean the rock dried very quickly though. After the pause, I led the Punk. Yet more bizarre sideways jamming and not much for you feet. I had to fight more than I would expect to on a VS and came worryingly close to falling at one point. 17 routes in, my shoulders and arms were starting to tire noticeably; I tried leading the next route – Cleft Wall Superdirect but thought the overhanging traverse with little for your feet felt desperate. I lowered off, my first failure of the day, and Tony blasted up it. But even seconding, I still think the moves are too hard to be VS. It’s sister route Cleft Wall was next. It is meant to be harder than its sister at 5b, but I think is actually the easier of the two.

Stanage on a nicer afternoon, a couple of weeks ago.

First rain, hiding under "the Punk"

Moving down to the Plantation area Tony put in a sterling effort on Wall Buttress (route 21), a bit of beast with some offwidth action in the middle. With more rain falling I then led Paradise Wall. In the rain and needing to places lots of runners in case I slipped off the sopping and polished holds, it didn’t feel much like paradise. The rain eased off for a bit as Tony seconded, so I carried on and sent Pegasus Wall and Valhalla, two VSs I haven’t done before. As we walked down from Valhalla the rain started again and soon it was bucketing down: water trickling down the cliff faces and soon the ground had streamlets running down it. We ran for one of the big trees below the cliff for some cover, but even under its canopy the rain was still dripping through. The edge itself disappeared into low cloud. We had our rain jackets on but we were both quickly soaked to the skins on our lower halves, water squelching out of my trainers as I walked! We waited half-heartedly for a bit, hoping it might clear, but looking across the Hope Valley there was no let up in the grey clouds racing towards us. The decision was made, soaking harness were taken off and packed with the rest of the soggy gear and we walked down to the road and back along to the car.

Tony, the offwidth master, taming Wall Buttress, Route 21.

Soggy climber bailing

Postmortem: quitting at 24 routes in at 17.30 suggested we would have been doing the last couple of climbs by head torch, but if it hadn’t rained earlier and we hadn’t done one route by mistake we might have been on schedule though to finish in the light. Tony wants to try again later in the summer, so an earlier start seems obvious. I was pretty tired after 24 routes. I’m not sure how I would have fared on another 12 but Tony was still going full gas. He does train though, so there is probably a lesson in there for me! I’ve climbed (and also hiked) far more metres in a day on alpine routes like Sydpillaren, but the climbing on routes like that is so much less sustained. If you really are a VS climber, i.e. VS is the best grade you can reliably onsight, then I think the Stanage VS Challenge might be too hard for you. That’s definitely how I felt. I’ve only onsighted one grade harder this year, a handful of HVSs and I have never led E1 on natural grit. So 24 routes just below my limit was a lot, I don’t think Tony ever felt he was likely to fall off, but I felt that a number of times towards the end. If we do it again he might need to lead a few more of the final ones!

Fancy giving it a go? The list of routes is here on UKClimbing.

Bikepacking around the Peak District

Since moving to Sheffield nearly a year ago I’ve been getting out into the Peak District and beyond quite a lot, but this has been mainly focused on climbing. I’ve ridden a lot for commuting during the week, keeping my cycling legs ‘in’ that way, but have had few opportunities for riding for pleasure. So now having finished my course, and having some time, I decided to get out and explore the Peak by bike. I didn’t want to ride on roads but I sold my trusty old mountain bike as part of our massive ‘life-streamlining’ before we moved from Helsinki. Hence I was going to need to find a route that I could do on my cyclocross bike as besides my roadie, that was the tool to hand.

On the trail in the White Peak.

Cromford Mill - first sparks
 of the industrial revolution.

There is definite sweet spot for off-road riding on a cyclocross bike (CX). Too smooth and you might as well be road biking on a lighter, faster bike. Too rocky and technical and it just feels like your teeth are going to rattle out of your head and you just want a mountain bike with suspension. In England and Wales the law helps define that sweet spot though; bikes have no right of way on footpaths, you are only allowed to ride on bridleways. In many parts of the country, bridleways are often farm tracks – they can be rough or muddy but in rural areas they usually are drivable for a Landrover or a tractor and the determined CX rider. The route I took followed bridleways throughout, so I was fully 'legal', although much of it made use of more modern cycle routes using old, dismantled railways lines - thanks to the brilliant Sustrans organisation that is creating a network of long distance routes across the UK for non-motorised traffic.

I started south of Chesterfield in the town of Clay Cross - my wife had to go that way for work that morning so it got me quickly away from Sheffield and towards some unfamiliar terrain. After the first 15 kms or so on quiet country lanes I dropped down into the Derwent valley just south of Matlock. Crossing the river and the Cromford Canal at High Peak Junction you get onto the High Peak Trail, and old railway line and now a national cycle route. You generally think of railways as being flat or nearly so, which makes dismantled ones such great cycle routes, but this is not the case here! The 19th century engineers needed to include massive inclines to get the railway up out of the river valley. Static locomotives were used to help trains haul or lower their loads up or down these inclines. They are not so steep as to be impossible to ride, but they are quite unlike road climbs for the cyclist: arrow straight and of a completely consistent angle, there is really nowhere to hide and no brief easings of angle as you toil up them.

Above the inclines.

On to the Pennine Bridleway.

The inclines take you up above the Matlock valley where you can see numerous quarries, abandoned and still working, and factories and their chimneys - again both empty and still in use. It is a lovely, verdant valley but it set a theme that is ever present in the Peak District: although now a rural area of great beauty, there are signs of past industry everywhere. It's strange but as the economy has changed so much in the post-war period, large parts of Britain have in effect been "re-wilded", or at least "re-ruralfied". Places which were once alive with the industry of both workers and their capitalist bosses; places of production, social conflict and social progress have slipped back into being rural backwaters where once again agriculture is the main industry. It is now the turn of people in the Far East and the Global South to go through those huge social and economic changes that took place in the valleys of the Peak District 18th and 19th centuries.

Once out into the open countryside of the Southern Peak, the High Peak trail allows rapid smooth riding westwards through limestone country. Limestone is not my favourite rock for climbing on, but it does mean wonderful wild flowers. The cuttings and banks of the railway line were alive with yellows, blues, pinks, purples and more, and buzzing with insect life. Occasionally I could see beautiful Common Orchids growing. The wildlife might not be as exciting as you might see in Finland, but the odd deer, rabbit and voles came into view and hovering kestrels were ever present. The High Peak trail above the inclines also includes the starting point of the Pennine Bridleway - a newish long distance path that will take the mountain biker or horse rider all the way to Scotland if they wish, roughly paralleling its older and better known sibling, the Pennine Way. I would follow the Pennine Bridleway until lunch time on the second day, when I would swing back east towards Sheffield on the Trans-Pennine Trail.

When the High Peak Trail merges with the Tissington Trail at Parsley Hay station, it swings northwards. The station is now a bike hire place, National Park info office and cafe - the coffee and chocolate tiffin is to be recommended.

New and old industry
above Cheedale.

Perhaps 10 kms north of Parsley Hay the disused railway meets still used rails, so just before this the trail, now solely the Pennine Bridleway, leaves the cuttings and embankments of the ex-railway and follows quiet lanes and farm tracks before dropping dramatically (read: really quite exciting on CX) into the amazing limestone gorge of Cheedale. Cheedale is again a place of old industry now going backwards to rural backwater. That industry left another old railway route through tunnels and over bridges down the gorge, which now makes the lovely bike and walking route, the Monsal Trail. Modernity now comes to Cheedale in the form of some of the hardest sports climbs in the UK on the various limestone walls. But the my route just crossed the Monsal Trail and the river, going north straight up and out of the dale via a beautiful but very steep meadow - the first place I had needed to get off and push.

North of Cheedale was some of what felt like the least travelled parts of the route that I followed. For a few kms the trail felt more like a footpath than bridleway but, on the other hand, despite needing to crash through vegetation nearly choking the path in places (fortunately not too many nettles!) it gave some really good singletrack riding in places.

The limestone gorge of Cheedale.

There is a trail there somewhere!

First push, out of Cheedale.

Traversing Mount Famine.

The Peak District is made up of two quite distinct visible geologies - the White Peak, the limestone predominantly in the south, and the Dark Peak, the gritstone to the north. By now with the afternoon pressing on, the route followed quiet lanes and started to climb towards the dark bulk of the Kinder plateau. At some point a line is crossed and the drystone walls are now made of the brown grit and not the white and greys of limestone. Crossing the high road between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Castleton marks a sudden change in the feel of the trail; the next section that traverses the western flanks of Kinder at over 400 mtrs of height is really mountain-bike country.

I didn't have a mountain bike, although I like to think I impressed the the passing MTBers with my doggedness (they were probably laughing at... not with...!). The Pennine Bridleway is an impressive path at this point but it is tough technical riding in parts as you traverse towards the wonderfully named Mount Famine, a spur coming down from Kinder. I pushed more here than anywhere else on the ride, but I guess I still managed to ride 70 percent of this section. The descent down into the village of Hayfield was excellent fun, although I suspect would have been even more fun with wide bars, hydraulic brakes and 140 mms of suspension up front!

Into the Dark Peak, tough going on the flanks of Kinder.

Looking back to Hayfield and Mount Famine.

Hayfield is lovely, I had a pie and pint in the pub, stocked up on supplies from a shop and left the town following the trail very steeply up onto Lantern Pike. Once the local boisterously good-natured Scout troop that had hiked up there left, I was all alone at the top so it seemed as good a spot as any to quietly put up my tarp and camp for the night. The views of the sun setting over Manchester to the west and lighting up the slopes of Kinder to the east were exactly the type of thing that makes wild camping worth it, even in a country where it is not exactly legal.

Evening light on Kinder, with Kinder Downfall just visible.

Sunset over Manchester and the Irish Sea.

Breakfast in bed.

I woke up in wee small hours hearing rain on the tarp, but I stayed dry and warm under it and the morning dawned blue and cloudless. Following the Pennine Bridleway over some more hills and then plunging down towards Glossop was good riding. In Glossop, I finally left that route when it is crossed by the Trans-Pennine Trail (TPT). This long distance route goes from the Irish sea near Liverpool to North Sea at Hull, but I was about to follow it to its highest point as I crossed back from the west to the eastside of the Pennines. The route up Longdendale follows old railway track again so its very straight and smooth. The path leaves the old track where the rails used to go into the now closed Woodhead tunnel. The TPT instead crosses the busy A628 (it is busy with lots of big trucks - take care!) and goes steeply up a hillside (more pushing) before following a rough bridleway up to the top of pass. The Woodhead Pass is high and quite wild in a way, but definitely not "wilderness": a busy road goes over it, Longdendale has big pylons carrying electricity cables that then go under the pass using the old railway tunnel. There are also reservoirs and dams in the valley bottom. But looking up to the cloughs and crags on the northern edge of Bleaklow you can see the wild country.

Getting going on day 2. 

Rough tracks giving slower but fun riding.

Looking toward Manchester - I can see my old uni!

Across the Woodhead pass and back in Yorkshire, the TPT plunges down into the Upper Don Valley and picks up the old railway line where it emerges from the eastern end of the Woodhead Tunnels. It’s then old railway - flat, straight and fast -through Pennistone, Deepcar and taking you almost all the way back into Sheffield. Once back in city centre there just one more steep hill to slog up and I was home in time to go and pick the kids up from school.

Climbing out of Longdendale - the Woodhead tunnel is somewhere deep below my tyres.

Traffic jam on the Trans-Pennine Way.

Back into Yorkshire, all downhill now.

Overall I did 151 kms in two days, of which probably only 25 kms was on paved road, arriving home sweaty, dirty and (perhaps unusually for Northern England) dry but slightly sunburnt.

Snapshot from Strava showing the route and profile - day 1:

Snapshot from Strava showing the route and profile - day 2:

 

Shropshire Lads, plus a mini gear review: DMM Renegade Harness and Aero Quickdraws

The Shropshire Hills

Released from family responsibilities for a day, I arranged with Tony to meet at Nesscliffe - perhaps Shropshire's 'proudest' crag. Having done Red Square a few years back, there's not much in the main sector easy enough for me to realistically try, but up on the Far Buttress I had heard that Batman (HVS) was a good climb. Whilst waiting for Tony to arrive at the cliff I floundered about in the rhododendron bushes trying to find the Far Buttress from the main sector - eventually stumbling over the large and obvious path that takes you easily and directly there.

Batman HVS, the quiet end of Nesscliffe

We both agreed the bouldering looked great too, but wanting to find some lunch sooner rather than later we limited ourselves to climbing Batman. It's rare I find routes that I think are easy for grade - a side effect of punterdom I suspect - but in this case I was pleasantly surprised to find it rather straightforward even with no warm up. But unless my climbing takes a remarkable turn for the better, that's probably Nesscliffe ticked for me!

The big cliffs of Llanymynech - spot the climber

We then headed towards Llanymynech, stopping on the way for a rather pleasant and reasonably priced pub lunch in Knockin, reminding me of just how bad roadside food options are in Finland in comparison.

Tony was pretty impressed on arrival at Llanymynech - it is a big crag and the length of the lines makes up to some degree for the slightly iffy nature of some of the walls. We started on two 6a lines on the left of Foreigner Walls which were fine, then Tony got on the rather fine Smack the Juggler (6b+).

Tony's first Llanymynech route, some slightly chossy non-descript 6a, but still all good fun.

He slipped off the onsight but got it on his first redpoint attempt. I actually got through the crux seconding on my first go, but ran out of puff higher up so did it with one rest. One to add to my ever-lengthening list of climbs-that-I-really-should-do-properly-one-day.

Unknown climber on Smack the Juggler 6b+

In the same vein, having watched another team on the rather wonderfully positioned Bah Bah Black Sheep (6a+) at the far side of Grid Iron Wall, I wanted a go. I did reasonably well until the inevitable arm pumpage made me wimp out of a minor run out above the crux. After a little rest on the bolt and giving myself a stern talking to over being such a wuss, I pulled back on and finished. Tiger Tony, of course, then cruised it but I used the excuse of wanting to show him the rest of the quarry as an excuse to put it on my aforementioned list to come back to, rather than putting the effort in and trying a second time to lead it cleanly.

Same unknown climber on Bah Bah Black Sheep, 6a+

We then headed to Welsh end of the quarry and Bay Wall. I remember cruising routes there last visit, and Tony indeed shot up the first route he tried that I had identified as a 6b, commenting he couldn't really see what was different about it to the other 6as we had done. I then headed up what I believed to be a 6a only to grind to a halt and then fall off a bit where I couldn't really work out what to do next. After lowering off, we more carefully checked the topo and realised that, yes, incompetent my guidebook reading was to blame so that Tony had indeed cruised a 6a and I had fallen off the 6b. Ooops. Tony then shot back up to my high point on the 6b before pulling a couple of great long reaches through the crux to finish. Then I, not wanting to finish on a low, battled up the not terribly great 6a (Summer Bay Babe) that Tony had already done.

Some not very good 6a on the Bay Wall at sundown

The sun was setting by this point and it was time to start our respective drives homeward, but I suspect we will arrange a rematch at Llanymynech in the future.

The DMM Renegade 2

The miniature gear review bit is just that the lovely people at DMM, deeper into darkest, craggiest North Wales, had asked me if I wanted to try some of their new products and this trip was the first chance to try them out. I've been a big fan of their Renegade harness since I reviewed it for UKClimbing quite some years back now and it has been my go-to harness ever since, being used probably on average once a week for nearly five years. My original is very grubby and a bit fluffy but still going strong, but nevertheless I was honoured to be asked if I would like to try out the new version in fetching red and grey. Putting it on was like meeting an old friend, it seems to fit me well and is as comfy as the Mk I. The Mk II keeps the design fundamentals like the floating waist padding and seven gear racks; but as some people claim to hate the slightly forward slanting gear racks on the Mk I, the Mk II has more traditionally oriented ones. I never found the first design a problem, but can happily report the new ones work great too. I need to wear it more but first impressions are the Renegade II is a great all-round harness with the few issues from the first version now resolved.

DMM Aero quickdraw

The second thing to try were some DMM Aero quickdraws. I've never tried Aeros before - DMM's slightly more basic plain-gate krabs. They aren't the lightest by a long stretch, but they sit in the hand well and both Tony and I felt they clipped as nicely as his swish BD sports quickdraws. Both ends have keylock gates making them great for clipping and stripping plus DMM are now using the same redesigned bent gate on the cheaper Aeros as on their more pricey plain-gate models and I think it is this rather well shaped and featured gate that really makes the Aeros easy to clip. They seem to be available for as little as 12 quid looking online, and in economical packs of five, and I suspect will serve well as hard-wearing sports 'draws, although I can't see any reason why they couldn't make up part of your trad rack of quickdraws either.

You can watch DMM's product videos for the Renegade 2:

DMM Renegade from DMM Climbing on Vimeo.

And for the Aero krabs/draws:

DMM Aero from DMM Climbing on Vimeo.

Southstone rock: a local cliff for local climbers

If you don't live in Worcestershire and climb the following is likely to be of very little interest. You have been warned!

Frost crystals on the walk up to Southstone

Southstone Rock (pdf of the guide available here for a quid) has a bit of a shitty reputation even amongst local climbers - it is definitely not somewhere you would recommend climbers travel to visit, but it is a geographic oddity - flowstone limestone popping up in an odd place. It has also always been a spooky place as well - deep in dark wood, with strange religious or perhaps even occult paraphernalia left in one of the caves when I first went there some decades back. A place where an older England; of fear and superstition, brutality and ignorance, feels not so far away. The next steep stream system down the valley is called "the Hell Hole" according to the OS map.

Southstone's main face and the left-hand subsidiary buttress

Anyway I walked past the cliff yesterday and was surprised to see that tree clearance had taken away much of the 'deep, dark woods' feel, and a lot more light will now be falling on the cliff.

The main face containing the crag 'classic', Madonna's Groove, HVS 5a

The rock is still its old swiss-cheese-am-I-really-brave-enough-to-put-my-hand-into-that-deep-pocket?-self that Southstone veterans will appreciate, but at least when some previously unknown-to-science deadly spider bites you, you can fall off and lay there gasping for your last breath in warm sunshine rather than the deep, forest shadows. So that is nice...

A far left buttress with obvious overhanging bouldering potential

Years ago I soloed and recorded a bunch of micro routes there, normally climbing up to where I could grab some kind of tree at the top, stick a sling around it and then abseil back down. Re-visiting the cliff now, most of these now look to my contemporary eye as obvious, easy, highball boulder problems. There are also many buttresses that are not particularly high that look to offer huge amounts of bouldering potential.

The back wall in the 'canyon' - potential short sports routes using natural threads

So I reckon any adventurous boulderers in the West Midlands, looking for first ascents, could do a lot worse than bring their pads, brushes and some sturdy gardening equipment to Southstone in the spring time.