Some rocks near Sheffield

[rydra_wong]

On Saturday, I got up at 6 and jumped on a train to Sheffield, and by 11 I was in the Burbage valley bouldering in the snow (finding the bits of rock that had stayed dry or already been dried by the sun).















Here's what it all looked like last June.

Comments

[sporky_rat]

That last photo is gorgeous.

[rydra_wong]

It's absurdly easy to take pretty photos up there. Just point my tinny little emergency phone at something and go click.

[quarryquest]

I love your safety mat!

[rydra_wong]

It's a fairly essential piece of kit for the wandering boulderer. *g* Though not really with something as easy as the slab it's sitting in front of; I was just nesting there for a while and had to take some photos. As you can see, it forms an island in the snow to provide somewhere dry to sit.

Then it folds in half and has shoulder straps so I can carry it on my back like a rucksack.

[jenlev]

Ooh, the third is my favorite, lovely sense of space.

[rydra_wong]

The valley is huuuge, and this cluster of boulders sits on one side of it, just where they catch all the sun.

[jenlev]

Very very pretty.:)

[spiralsheep]

I remember those boulders from your previous post. I hope you had fun! (I just keep looking at the photos and thinking: ow, cold fingers!)

[rydra_wong]

I had a wonderful time! It was actually warmer than when I went up there a few weeks back, when it was too cold to snow.

And my fingers were fine; I have warm gloves for when not actually climbing, and with lots of layers on the rest of me (and good peripheral circulation), I was toasty and my fingers were happy. And my toes, even when I ended up hopping barefoot through the snow at various points to keep my climbing shoes clean -- you usually end up downclimbing to get off the boulder via a different route than the one you can up, so then you have to get back to the mat somehow without getting your shoes muddy, or spend five minutes getting them clean and dry again ...

[lark_ascends]

Gorgeous!!!

[lavendertook]

Wow--very impressive boulders!!!! And that last pic is gorgeous.

[rydra_wong]

Millstone grit is sometimes referred to by British climbers as "God's own rock", because it's so wonderful to climb on.

I was just climbing on the small friendly boulders, not the big gritstone edge you can see in the background of the first picture.

[robynbender]

Very fine! Have forwarded to AR.

[rydra_wong]

Geology porn: we haz it.