Stanage..or Burbage...Burbage or Stanage

Well in the end we went for Stanage seeing as the hills were entirely blanketed in a fine mist of minging proportions. It was looking like the Works might become a likelihood as opposed to a fallback option as we approached the Plantation.

On arriving we hung around hoping for someone else to go up first and return with news of conditions, to avoid a fruitless walk-in but alas the only other people in the car park sacked it to Cratcliff, so we padded up and commited to the epic.

The rock was surprisingly dryish with just a few places feeling a little slippery but on the whole decent. Being a regular gritstone technician I had come well equipped with 3 pairs of toe down boots, perfect for the cave but maybe not my current predicament... So after a brief warm up I failed to repeat Deliverance and decided to get on everything that overhung in someway and didn't involve luck based padding up slabs!

First up was Captain Hook that felt ok until I smashed my shin in the roof trying to do a wide leg clamp and I sacked it over to Twister on the back of the Pebble. Mike came over and helped me work out the moves as he hadn't done it in a while. After working the sequence and latching the top to the left of the boss I proceeded to thrash about like a dying seal and with the heckles of a 15 strong crowd willing me downwards I slid off on to the mats below.
It took another 3 attempts to redpoint the top out and after resting I couldn't link it again, feeling a bit battered and more keen to get over to Brass Monkeys.

Me, O and Mike went over and had it padded out enough, to not feel like broken limbs were a likely outcome if you were to fly off backwards. It took a short while to work out how to hold the swing and get over the lip. The bottom section was ok but it took a while to stop trying a variety of poor ideas and just clamp hard on the right heel instead of draping it, in order to free the hand and top out scarily. I must have spent at least a minute stood on the arete working out which bit of green moss and lichen to sketch up on! Having done it in 2 halves it just remained to link it but I was just feeling a full on body shutdown and decided to wait for a stronger day.

We ended the day up near Silk willing ben up but he was sketching about on the smeary left foot rockover crux. Me, O and Dave had a go on the 'cortomaltese' of Stanage with Help the Aged, what a terrible line! It really capped off a day of trying and failing on mostly obscure a-technical problems.

It was a bit of a weird day really, nice to be out with some mates, but left feeling underwhelmed by the plantation yet again. I think the best policy is go warmup, crush your project and get out of there to save skin and sanity.