El Roacho

I have had a lovely weekend. Ex housemate Liza was over on Friday night with the intention of inspecting Baby Morrison-Clark on Saturday. Went to the cinema to see Stardust, an uplifting easy watching happy experience - just the ticket to put the lid on a working week. 

 

Obviously, it must have rained in the Peak on Friday night, as whilst Saturday morning was dry, there was lots of moisture about  the roads were wet and Mr Bennett reported hanging fog over burbage way. Pushed on to rubicon and warmed up - ok in the shade, but the sun was beating down on the Kudos wall and I didn't even try. Wasn't bothered being completely honest, the meat of the day was at the Roaches, it was there I was excited about going. Stopped in Buxton Morrisons to collect supplies. Buxton is a  spa town in the middle of the Peak district with some regal buildings, nice parks, old people and chavs. I once spent a night on a park bench in Buxton, having hitched there before getting stranded. Great road out of Buxton to the Roaches, good surface, sweeping bends etc etc. If ever I get a fast car I will detour on the way home from the garage. Had spotted in the guide a pub called the winking man, which is a great name for a pub, so earmarked it for a way home pint. It looked thoroughly shit. Turned right past the Rock pub (which looks much better) and up the road to the rocks. Is the first thing you see on the right Hen Cloud? is very impressive. The rocks were very dark, as though they were still wet - which indeed, they were. Parked up beneath the Whillans hut (what is the score with this? presumably you have to be attached to a climbers club or something) which was festooned with a Brixton Climbers flag. The flag contained a skull and crossbones, which made me think the Brixton climbers were probably pissed up city boys. There were certainly lots of people out, striding about in head to toe gore tex proclaiming at the top of their voices in southern accents how extreme they were.

 

On the recommendation of Dr Pinch himself (ed robinson), we missed out the spring boulders and headed to the lower tier. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of wetness about. Did some fun stuff including 'Staffordshires best easy problem' - three pockets diagonally crossing an off vertical wall. Awesome. Had to have about a million goes (3) - such a technique donkey! where I was reaching the top pockets, running my feet up the wall beneath me and reaching onto the slab and trying to palm it, I should have high stepped to the dish on the right and rocked over. I didnt figure this out by myself, had to wait for someone else to point the way. I think perhaps thats why I get on so well with boards, limestone and bearing down, I must lack imagination - the "Adam Long (patent pending) movement laboratory" brain hemisphere is underdeveloped. If you show me how to climb something, I will be able to do it, but if you leave me to work it out, chances are I wont. I need to surround myself with brilliant climbers who can show me how to do things. Its another reason, that if ever I did a new problem I would be troubled grading it - probably I would have a wack sequence. Apparently Ben Moon had the same problem. 

 

The next problem was a fun dyno round the other side of the same bloc, then something called the gutter. Rounded off the lower tier on Inertia Reel. Oh My God. Given I had failed to see the sequence on a 6a the chances of my thrutching up this beastly contortion were slim. The guide off puttingly states that many a finger pulley has been ruptured by that undercut, which immeadiately put me on the defensive. I don't know what you have to do to succeed on that problem, but it seems desparate. I managed to pull on and hold the position undercutting fiercely with my left and palming with my right, but I couldnt move and didn't do any of the rest of it.

 

Finished the day off on top where I just did some fun bimbling problems. The light was absolutely amazing. Just a lovely red orange sunset - Beautiful. Headed back down to Helen's car and drove to the Rock - shut til 6. Pushed on to the red lion in litton (been taken over, serves farmers blonde) for a quick pint before home. All in, a lovely day out, not massively overwhelmed by the roaches, but didnt see it all. Mushin looks fab but was soaked, no idea about inertia reel and the traverse looks dead hard. Props to Helen for driving.

 

Sunday, went for a walk. Today board, tomorrow in Edinburgh all day, Wednesday maybe the works? Thursday will be works or board, Friday going to see Groove Armada in Manchester, then suit shopping on saturday, sunday dont know. Sigh.