Mini Grit Rampage!

I cut my teeth and learnt to climb on the Peak District gritstone and ever since I just love climbing on  gritstone. I bumped into Steve many years ago at Cratcliffe, he was climbing an E2 on a shunt. We swapped numbers (before FB/computers! Probably!) and he basically taught me to climb. 

Over the following 10 year period we got into a very definite routine, we would meet Kev, Sue and Dave at Steve's cold house in Winster (lovely house but he was too tight to have the heating on!) most Saturdays and Sundays. I can still remember it clearly now, he'd sit in his kitchen in his big duvet jacket to keep warm, we'd  have a brew (often 2), go through guidebooks before heading off to climb somewhere in the Peak, obviously favouring gritstone, but also limestone if we had to!

It was a fun, and climbing wise very productive time, and I ended up climbing some E3's (my climbing high point!)! 

Phil's first grit route I think (Heather Wall)

Eventually change was in the air (?life happened) and the whole group disbanded the same summer/year. Kev and Sue moved to France, Dave moved to Brussels, Steve fell in love and moved to Somerset and I resigned from my job as a telecoms engineer and moved to the NW to go to University and study to be an Occupational Therapist.

Eliminator

I see Dave most winters for skiing now, and Kev and Sue pop back to England regularly (and bring wine - big thanks), but I'd not heard from Steve since he left 10 years ago.

Hargreaves Original Route

Thanks to Sam getting in touch (we are both useless at this) we arranged to meet at Stanage on Monday and climb :-). Steve was up from Plymouth holidaying with his family and other friends.

Me on BAWS crawl (couldn't let Phil miss this)

We met at Stanage, and Steve hadn't changed a bit. Straight away the banter began as we set off on a grit rampage, to climb as many routes as we could in the time available, and to show Phil the best routes here. Steve was wearing a 'berry' coloured windproof that he'd bought from the charity shop for £1 - this made me smile...

Right unconquerable

Right unconquerable from other side

top of right unconquerable

It was a fantastic day, I think we were all on form as we cruised 3 classic VS's, 4 classic HVS's (Goliaths Groove, Right Unconquerable, BAWS Crawl and Eliminator) and 1 x E1 (The Link).

Goliaths Groove (the tricky bit at the start!)

Phil learning to 'feel the force'

They were already running late as we finished on Goliath's Groove. We got back to the cars and as Phil and Steve burnt off in their people carrier (family men!) Steve leaned out of his window waved, shouted 'love you', gave me a cheeky look and they sped off! Hilarious - Steve you have not changed one bit and it was great to see you. Lets not make it 10 years until we meet up again.

Steve - chopper man!