Ascents in Europe as trad by David Gibbs

An absolutely gorgeous climb, with excellent gear the whole way up. Never overly run out.

I even climbed it with a gentle rain starting as I climbed -- for an easier climb, it stayed remarkably dry, and enjoyable climbable despite the light rain.

A must-do climb.

Even sick, I could TR this clean.

Took a shot at it, but didn't have the grunt. I was ill.

Easy going, but I stitched it up, completely unnecessarily. Bad lead head that day, because I was coming down sick.

Stil, a lovely, lovely, climb.

Climbed the first pitch as it started to sprinkle, then the 2nd pitch (most technical) in the full-out rain on soaking-wet rock. Not the most fun thing, but definitely a challenge. It was great rock, well-protected, and not actually all that bad, even soaking wet.

Didn't actually climb third (9m to top-out) pitch, but it look quite easy, even soaking wet, compared to the 2nd pitch and would happily have lead it, except the escape by rappel looked easier from where we were.

And, went back for the red-point while there. Climbed very smoothly and well on lead, too.

Anchors are well back from the edge, across grass. Consider bringing gear to extend very long if setting up a top-rope for others.

Followed and cleaned Phil's lead.

A fun route. Placements are non-obvious from below, but appear frequently and seem solid.

Linked pitches 1 & 2, since belay stance at 11m was a bit small & exposed for Jex. A bit of rope drag because of this, but otherwise fine fine climbing.

After Trinity Slabs went so well, I decided to lead something a bit harder. The crux was well protected, but then after pulling it, quite run-out for quite a ways, including some solid climbing.

The Oak tree belay is dead, but still seemed pretty solid.

Had K8 lead it, as she needed more lead experience.

Since following, decided to pull straight up the vertical wall above the 3rd belay, rather than following the route (which goes left into a groove, then back right). Felt like it went at about 5.9/5.10a maybe F5C. Maybe 4 or 5m of serious climbing.

First exposure to Borrowdale volcanic rock -- and it is lovely. This was a pleasant, easy climb. I quite enjoyed it.

Took two tries -- first try, fell off to the ground within about 2 moves of the start, just careless. More careful on 2nd try and got it clean the whole way.

After dropping a rope to recover my gear, I was able to get this on top-rope. Still found the off-width section difficult, and kind of glad I didn't go after it on lead.

Lead part way up, then got to the off-width section with no apparent gear. I wasn't willing to commit to this after looking at it a few times. So, I traversed left along the big horizontal break, then finished up "Chockstone Chimney".

Easy-going, but fun.

A pleasant lead.

A fun TR, though some hard pulls at the start.

The struggle to get over the first chockstone is quite epic -- nothing to grab, nothing to push against, in a crack that is just about hip-width wide, so not a lot of room to maneuver. I guess this would be more squeeze-chimney than off-width, but it has a similar grunt-work for inches feel.

Guide says HS - 4b, but who am I to judge grades? I'll take the VS 4c on here.

A good climb with good gear.

Definitely wet when climbed, which made things a bit more challenging.

First gritstone lead, and first time on gritstone in ages, and the rock was a bit damp. Still, it went quite well.

Another climb on my trip. We made a mistake, and bailed at the fore-summit -- thinking Bacun was Balzet, and we didn't have time to finish.

Swung leads. (Date not exact -- was late July 2009 trip to the Alps.)