A bus ride from the centre of Sheffield

[rydra_wong]

Last week, I spent five days bouldering on the gritstone in the Peak District. Here are some photos taken on my crappy little phone camera.

They have a lot of sky up there.



[Boulder against bright blue sky with fluffy clouds.]



Being from the inner city, I am easily impressed by horizons:



[An earth and gravel track with more sky and somewhat more ominous clouds above it.]

Also, by plants:



[Roadside plants: ferns, dockleaves and tiny blue forget-me-nots.]

Geographical context:



[Road sign showing directions to Sheffield, Grindleford and Bakewell.]

I was climbing in the Burbage Valley:



[View across valley showing Carl Wark and Higgar Tor.]

Tradition says that Carl Wark (in the centre of the photo) is an Iron Age fortress; archeological speculation is that it may be much older.

These are some of the boulders where I did most of my climbing, in front of the gritstone edge on the other side:



[Boulders including "The Tank".]

More rock porn:



[Boulders against a bright blue sky.]



[The boulder known as the Brick.]

The gritstone is a type of sandstone mixed with quartz and feldspar crystals; I tried but failed to capture the way it glitters in bright sunlight:



[Low rocks, not visibly glittering.]

Because of its fantastic friction (the reason why climbers love it), it was used to make millstones for grinding grain, which is why it's known to geologists as Millstone grit:



[Abandoned millstone with ferns and low plants growing around it.]

During WWII, soldiers were stationed here, and some of them used the boulders for target practice; holds on some bouldering problems are the pockmarks left by the bullets:



[Bullet marks on the Pock Block.]

This is entirely natural -- it's a gritstone tor called Mother Cap:



[Mother Cap, a tor with diagonal layers of rock piled on top of each other.]

The yellow thing is my bouldering mat, which is not nearly as small as it looks there. Despite how small it looks when you're a long way above it.

It being June, there were lambs around, many with their baby horns:



[Sheep and lamb.]



[Sheep and lamb, which may or may not be the previous sheep and lamb.]

The sheep were surprisingly hard to photograph until I discovered that my rainproof poncho made me magically Less Alarming To Sheep.

I am not including a photo of the poncho.

Did I mention the rocks?



[Rocks and sky on a hilltop, either Carl Wark or Higgar Tor.]

And the sky?



[Huge sky, streaked with lines of cloud.]

And that was what I did on my summer holiday, by Rydra Wong aged 36 and 3/4.



[Dark landscape, either early morning or late evening, silhouetted against cloudy sky.]

Comments

[zillah975]

These are beautiful! And I'm so with you on the sky. I've always lived in places with lots if hills and very tall trees, so the first time I went to the desert southwest, it was weeks before I began to grudgingly admit that, probably, the sky was not literally four thousand times the size of the sky back home. But I still believe it is.

[rydra_wong]

The sky and the silence! I couldn't cope with how quiet it was at first.

[weaverbird]

What a wonderful place! Thanks for sharing.

[helens78]

So pretty! :)

[rydra_wong]

I saw one of the lambs doing a cat-stretch -- you know, the one where the forelegs are vertical but the back and the hindlegs become a long diagonal of streeeeetch.

[helens78]

AWWW! I have never seen a sheepcat, but I am sure it is AWESOME. :D (Although I am also full of the image of the sheep falling down kerplop, what with not actually being a cat. XD)

[rydra_wong]

Some of them also seemed to favour the sheeploaf position (where all the legs disappear), especially when dealing with rain.

[cofax7]

Oh, beautiful!

Also beautiful rock: I love the striated layers. Is it good for getting your fingers into, or just texture?

Were there a lot of people there?

I want someday to go to all these places to climb, but before I'm too old to enjoy it properly...

[rydra_wong]

BEST FRICTION EVER.

The horizontal layers can be useful, but they tend to be slopers at best, incredibly shallow dips at worst.

This is why climbers get so obsessive about gritstone: the holds tend to be rounded and sloping and subtle, but because the friction's so good, if you get the angles right you can pull moves you can't anywhere else. It holds your hands in a way other rocks don't (it also shreds your hands like nothing else, but that's a price you pay). Either it seems like there are no holds at all, or everything can be a hold.

My outdoor climbing is still geologically rather limited (granite, southern sandstone, Font sandstone, gritstone) but the grit is genuinely different from anything else I've climbed on, and the most different from indoor climbing. That's why I wanted to get back up there; I think I can learn so much from it.

I was there in the middle of the week, and often out in the early mornings (I think the locals tend to surface later and catch the evening light after work), and I was almost always the only person on the boulders.

I should add that the photos don't convey how erratic the weather was; I was dodging showers some of the time, and got hailed on at one point (a day or two after getting sunburned). But it was beautiful all the time.

[mongrelheart]

Beautiful pictures! Thank you for sharing.

[turlough]

Beautiful photos! I've visited the Peak district several times (the last time just a few weeks ago) but I've never actually been up into the hills. For some reason I never seem to get further than the towns and valleys :-)

[jenlev]

Oh these are gorgeous, the mother cap especially. And...heh, Scottish Blackfaced....my mother has had those off and on for years. They're tough customers. :)

[rydra_wong]

I kept finding myself apologizing to the sheep for disturbing their grazing time.

[jenlev]

Hee! They do tend to give the impression that they own the universe. ;)

[astridv]

What lovely rocks. That looks like it's really worth a trip. Making a mental note right now. *g* Actually I've been to the Peak District once but that was ages ago, long before I was climbing. We did visit a fascinating old mine, accessible by endless stairs and then a boat ride through a narrow tunnel. That was amazing, too.

[rydra_wong]

That looks like it's really worth a trip.

It really, really is. Even aside from the beauty of the area, the gritstone is extraordinary stuff (see my reply to cofax7 above) and it's had a central role in the development of British climbing.

[stultiloquentia]

These are cool.

[sasha_feather]

Gorgeous! Thanks for the photos.

[ciderpress]

Oooh, fantastic photos. (Where are the pictures of your kicky shoes??!!!)

And it sounds like you had a really good time! I am glad. Some of that rock looks amazingly smooth, did you do the toe-upside-down thing? I WILL ONE DAY REMEMBER THE NAMES! hee.

[rydra_wong]

I will try to remember to take some photos of my kicky shoes just for you!

did you do the toe-upside-down thing?

... heel-hook? toe-hook?

(No to either.)

Some of that rock looks amazingly smooth

If so, it is an ILLUSION! Probably caused by the crappiness of my phone camera. Or covert glittering. Or something.

The gritstone is incredibly rough and notorious for cheese-grater-ing your hands. It is sparkly vampire rock and wants your blood.

[lark_ascends]

Thanks so much for sharing!

[rydra_wong]

My pleasure!