Gimmer Crag

I was a little dubious about the idea of heading into Langdale on a Bank Holiday weekend to climb - sure its some of the very best rock in the Lake District - but I thought the crowds would be super annoying * and we'd end up queuing for climbs. Well it turned out I couldn't have been more wrong - for such a huge crag in the heart of the touristy part of the Lakes we had the place virtually to ourselves, we only say five other parties all day. Perhaps the much hyped slow death of climbing on the big mountain crags is starting to be felt here - certainly at the easier access sport climbing crag yesterday we saw more people. Still their loss our gain - we were able to get Steve onto a Classic Rock tick (Bracket & Slab, VS variation***) that he'd not done before & also get up the 'letters' wall via a direct little VS that would normally have been a spaghetti work of ropes - all in the brilliant sunshine.
Today's Blip is Steve stepping onto the slabs - a fair few hundred feet above the valley floor with The Band & Crinkle Crags in the background.

* What was astoundingly annoying was the music bellowing up onto the fells, clearly heard over a mile away, from the Stickle Tavern - now run by the National Trust. For an organisation that's supposed to be encouraging people to enjoy our land's fantastic natural heritage it was a pretty poor show. Entertainment could have been inside the pub & probably not heard - but then perhaps takings might not have been so good, grrrr.