Night climbing at Wimberry
28th Mar 2011
After a relatively hectic weekend (Ryans 30th birthday bash) I was looking forward to a relaxing days rest however following a quick phone call from an over excited Dan, I soon found myself treking up the (enormous) hill up to Wimberry crag. I had been assured that we were going to try one of the most amazing boulder problems in the world, as well as chucking a top rope down a few hard scary slabs.
As always Dans plan did not disappoint and we had a great afternoon and evenings climbing. We decided to have a crack at a few routes first so, as Dan rigged a top rope, I decided to have a crack at soloing the route first, it was an E1 slab so should be pretty easy. I got up to a couple of moves from the top but, as is often the case at Wimberry, the crux holds were covered in dry flaky green lichen so I decided to retreat and opted for a top rope instead (probably a good idea). We scampered up the E1 pretty easily then tried the adjacent route, an old Johnny Dawes route, Northern Ballet (claimed to be the scariest E3 on grit!) The plan was to have a quick top rope then solo it, but after struggling and barely getting up the route clean, we decided the sensible thing to do was to go bouldering!!
The problem that Dan was so excited about was a F7A+ called Rail Trail, this is a traverse round a square cut prow and is a fantastic line, the start was a bit green and minging still so we opted to climb the last section of it which probably warranted F6C itself. It went pretty easily as its very much my style of climbing and im really keen to get back up there to finish the whole problem when its a bit drier.
Simon on the last section of Rail Trail.
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