Gritstone (England) and Amsterdam (June 23 - July 6, 2007)

This past June, Roanne and I made a trip to the U.K. to attend the wedding of her cousin who lives in Chesterfield.  As soon as I heard we were going to England, my mind totally cleared except for two powerful words: the grit.  I was very excited at the prospect of pulling of some dicey head points on the grit, having been inspired by the classic climbing movie "Hard Grit" (if anyone hasn't seen this movie, go watch it immediately, it is hands down the best climbing film ever made).  On Saturday, June 23 we flew from Salt Lake City to Toronto, and then on to Glasgow, Scotland and finally to Manchester, England, arriving around 11:00am on Sunday.  We picked up our rental car and drove through the rain on to Derby, where we would stay the first night with some of Roanne's relatives.  We hung out for the afternoon and then went out for dinner at a good Indian restaurant before getting an early night in preparation for our first day of climbing the next day.

Monday dawned with a little drizzle, but it had cleared up by midmorning so we headed north to the Peak District, home of the grit.  On the way there it started to rain a bit, then it started to rain hard, then the sky opened up and started dumping water like crazy.  I kept telling myself it would clear up by the time we got to the gritstone, but that was not the case.  Here are some pictures from the drive there:

As seen above, we encountered a number of spots where there was 1-2 feet of standing water on the road, and some roads had been closed because of the flooding.  There were stalled cars, overflowed rivers, and just general chaos.  It didn't look like we were going to get much climbing in.  So we got out of the car briefly to look at the grit, and then headed into Sheffield, the closest city to check out one of the climbing gyms.  After some route finding difficulties we eventually found it, and then had fun climbing for a couple of hours.  One nice thing was that we didn't even have to take a belay test in order to lead belay.  We then headed back to the town of Matlock, where Roanne's family had rented a cottage where we would all stay before and after the wedding.  Driving back took a little while, since it turned out that the worst of the flooding had been in Sheffield (after observing the flooding in the Peak District we had headed straight for the epicenter), but after a couple of hours we made it to the cottage. 

The next day dawned overcast but not raining, so Roanne, Meridith (Roanne's sister who had arrived the night before), and myself headed back to the Peak District to climb some gritstone classics!  We started at Higgar Tor, here is the view from the approach, with the impending dodgy ascents looming!

We were wading through ferns on the approach, with sheep bleating in the background, it was pretty picturesque.  We started with a route called The File (VS 4c), a route described by the guide book as the Peak's pre-eminent jamming crack.  Very Nice!  The guidebook (Eastern Grit, published by Rockfax) is amazing, hands down the best guidebook I have ever used.  It has colour photos of each cliff with the routes drawn in, great descriptions, and lots of awesome photos.  It rates climbs for quality with a 0-3 star system, and also denotes routes that are past of the top 50 gritstone climbs as sort of a super high quality indication.  Appropriately enough, we were starting with a top 50 climb that was also the cover shot for the guidebook.  If I was only going to get one route in during the trip I was going to make sure it was a good one, so we started with the big money.  As for the rating system, I won't try to explain it since I never ended up understanding it too well myself, but VS stands for Very Severe (wow!), and there are a bunch of other acronyms like HS for Hard Severe, etc., and then the harder climbs go from E1, E2, E3, etc. and on up, with the E standing for EXTREME!!!  That is so awesome.  Anyways, here are some photos of me climbing the file, which was a perfect hand crack, it's only downfall being that, like all other gritstone routes, it is a little short.

Another interesting thing about grit is that there is a strict no bolting ethics, so you have to make your own anchors and walk off all of the routes, which is fine since all the routes have easy walk offs or down climbs.  This also means that the harder routes have very little pro and can be quite dangerous, but everything we did had adequate protection.  One good thing about the routes being so short is that you can solo easy stuff and it just feels like a high boulder problem.  I had never intentionally soloed anything before but I did a bunch of stuff here (although only stuff up to about 5.6), it must be something about the hard man atmosphere that the grit exudes.  I soloed a route called the Paddock (VDiff), and then I racked up for a route called The Rasp (E2 5b) which the guidebook describes as "A contender for the best outing on grit", another top 50 route.  In contrast to most other gritstone routes, this one was steep, climbing the steep face of the leaning block is shown above (around the corner to the left from The File).  This route was awesome, steep but with big jugs.  I managed to send, here are a couple of photos:

While Roanne and Meri were talking about how it was too cold to climb and they wanted to go into town and have some lunch and hot tea, I went and soloed three other easy routes: Greymalkin (S 4a), Hecate (VDiff), and Wotan's Crack (S 4b).  All this talk of going into town for tea on what would likely be the only full day of climbing we would get (due to wedding-related family engagements and inclement weather) made me feel like Obe Carrion in Rampage, when Chris Sharma is talking about how they need to go chill, and Obe blows up and starts yelling "No chilling!  We've done enough chilling, we need to start getting stuff done!".  Of course that is a paraphrase of Obe's original quote, his version involved a few f-bombs and other choice expletives mixed in.  Anyways, the ladies thought the Rasp (the guide book says that in the late 70s to early 80s it was regarded as a bit of a big tick, very nice!) looked a bit too physical, so after cleaning it, I top roped an adjacent climb called Bat Out of Hell (E5 6a).  This was super fun, and didn't feel too bad to me.  If I move to England, this route will be my first head point.  Anyways, by now the ladies of grit (Ro and Meri) were threatening to abandon me and go search for tea and crumpets, so I finally relented and we headed to a nearby town (Hathersage) to find some food.  Before leaving, I flipped over an abandoned millstone lying at the base of the cliff so that the ladies of grit could pose beside it:

Here is a photo of Ro and Meri walking out through the ferns:

We found a nice little deli for lunch and had some sandwiches, and then headed for another area called Stanage, which has over 4 km of cliff line and is described by the guidebook as "The finest of all gritstone edges, and by quite a margin.".  With this glowing endorsement dancing in our heads, we made a beeline for the cliff in a hopeless attempt to satiate our ravenous appetites for gritstone classics.  We started on a really fun route called Manchester Buttress (HS 4b), which I am shown climbing below (left), with Meri earning her junior gritstone merit badge by following cleanly (below right).

While Meri belayed Roanne I soloed up Black Hawk Traverse Left (VDiff) and on the way down took some photos of Roanne climbing Manchester Buttress.  Here she is shown giving it everything, maybe even little bit more (to be said in a thick german accent like Jens Voigt).

And here she is getting ready to clean the best size of the best camming device on the market (gold Black Diamond C4):

We then moved on to an elegant climb called Eliminator (HVS 5b), which was super fun, with harder moves between horizontal breaks with bomber gear placements:

I then soloed Black Hawk Traverse Right (Diff), and then we finished on a really fun route (top 50!) called The Tippler (E1 5b).  It climbed up to a roof, traversed left, and then pulled the roof on decent holds.  Here are a couple of photos of me on it, before and after pulling the roof:

We then headed back to the cottage for dinner, violating standard climbing protocol which dictates that one must not stop climbing to have dinner while it is still light out and not raining.

The next morning we had plans to go visit Chatsworth, which is a big mansion and estate where the Duke of Devonshire lives, and also where they filmed part of some movie.  It was pretty nice, here is a photo of the outside and inside of the house:

It rained a bit throughout the morning, but cleared around lunch, so Roanne, Meri, Gordon (Roanne's sister Holly's husband, who, incidentally, introduced Roanne and myself to outdoor climbing) and I decided to go squeeze in a few gritstone classics before we had to attend a wedding related barbeque that evening.  After doing a drive by of Froggat (too wet), we headed for Curbar, which the guidebook says "has always had a reputation for fierce routes, solid grades and being a bit of a tough task master".  Perfect!  We started on a moderate classic called P.M.C. 1 (HS 4a), which Meri is shown climbing below, with Gordon belaying.  Gordon climbed with a swami belt since he didn't have a harness with him.  Not so comfortable!

We then climbed a fun route called Avalanche Wall (HVS 5a), which I am shown racking up for below (note all the blooming heather in the background):

We finished up with two good other good routes, L'Horla (E1 5b) which is described by the book as "Classic grit E1", and Maupassant (HVS 5a) which is described as "Classic grit HVS".  By this point the weather had gotten quite nice, and it was very difficult for me to tear myself away from the grit.  In the end I was successful, and we went to the barbeque.

Thursday morning I looked out the window and it wasn't raining, and I immediately felt the powerful pull of the grit magnet drawing me towards the peak district.  Unfortunately this was not to be, as we had family plans to go meet up with some of Roanne's other relatives in Stratford-on-Avon.  We met at a Thai restaurant for lunch and then walked around a bit, taking a look at Shakespeare's birthplace which was moderately interesting.  That night we managed to obtain access to a gym that was near the cottage, and Gordon, Meri and I went there in the evening and had a fight club workout with boxing gloves and focus mitts.  I had never done anything like that before, but it was pretty fun, which is good because I was super sore for about 5 days afterwards.

Friday was the day of the wedding, so there would be no climbing.  In the morning there was some rain, but Holly, Gordon, Meri and I went for a walk to an old castle that could be seen on the hilltop across from our cottage.  It was pretty neat, but better from a distance than up close.  It looked like some partial renovations had been undertook, and there was a big Hells Angels logo painted on the floor in one room, which wasn't really in keeping with the exterior decor.  Here are a couple of photos from the outside:

In the afternoon the weather cleared and we attended the wedding, which was fun.  It was held in the town of Eyam, which has some history associated with the plague (use google if you are interested in more specifics), and we saw a tombstone from the year 790 which was pretty neat.

Saturday morning it was raining, so I took a bubble bath and read the Eastern Grit guidebook, dreaming of the gritstone classics that I should have been climbing at that moment:

After a long bath it was still raining, so while we had hoped to go climb outside, instead we (Gordon, Meri, Roanne and I) headed into Sheffield to climb at a gym.  We had hoped to check out another gym called The Foundry, but since we didn't have a map to it, we went to the one we had been to before, called The Edge.  It would have been nice to be on the grit, but at least we got to climb a bit.

Sunday morning it was raining again but we decided to go check and see if the weather was better in the Peak District.  Roanne and I went back to Stanage, where we started on a top 50 route called Flying Buttress Direct (HVS 5b) which was really fun, but a really bad one to warm up on, since it involved pulling some strenuous roofs.  I then quickly soloed the adjacent top 50 climb Flying Buttress (HVD 4a), and we moved on to another top 50 classic called Hargreaves Original (VS 4c).  We then did another really good top 50 route called Queersville (HVS 5a), and I finished by soloing one last top 50 climb called Hollybush Crack (VDiff).  Every climb we did that afternoon was in the list of top 50 classics, by now we had realized that if we happened to get a good weather window we better make good use of it!  We didn't get any climbing photos for this day (or the next) since now it was just Roanne and myself so there was no one to wield the camera.

Monday was another designated climbing day, but in the morning it was, you guessed it, raining again.  We drove out to the Peak District anyways, and after visiting some little town and seeing some stuff the weather cleared a bit, and we made a dash for Stanage and squeezed in three routes before it started raining again: April Crack (HS 4b), Christmas Crack (HS 4a), and Central Trinity (VS 4c).  We took shelter under an overhang for a while to see if it would stop, but it showed no sign of letting up.  We took our sad farewell from the gritstone at that point, since the next morning we would depart for Amsterdam.  All in all the gritstone was super fun, the only drawback was the weather.  I think more people would travel there to climb if the weather was a little more predictable.  But with all of Roanne's extended family living in England (thankfully, quite close to the Peak District), I'm sure we'll be back to make some more gritstone climbings.

Tuesday morning we drove to Doncaster Airport and flew out at 7:00am for Amsterdam.  We arrived in Amsterdam an hour later, and took a train into the city.  We walked the few blocks from the train station to the hotel, and the first thing I noticed was: bikes!  Tons of them!  Everywhere there were bike racks, and they were all jam packed with bikes.  I've never been in a situation where I have had to make an effort to find bike parking (probably because everyone in the U.S. and A. eschews human powered transport for giant SUVs), but here it could be a problem.  They also have bike lanes (separated from the road by a curb) on every road, and even separate traffic signals for bikes.  Pretty awesome.  Also, everyone rides single speed cruiser bikes with coaster brakes, which is fine since it is so flat.  We checked in at our hotel and then made it our first order of business to go and rent some bikes.  We then went to look at some museums, starting with the Van Gogh museum and then Anne Frank's house.  We then did a bike tour of Amsterdam's modern architecture, which was fun.  Here is a photo of Roanne outside of some modern building (on the left), and on the right one of me riding by an interesting looking bridge.

The next day (Wednesday) we wanted to see some windmills, so in the morning we rode our bikes to the train station and took the train to a little town with a bunch of windmills and associated stuff.  At the train station we parked our bikes in the 4 level bicycle parking garage (no kidding!), which was pretty neat, I have never seen so many bikes in one place.  We had to go all the way to the top just to find a spot to park.

At the town (I think it was called Zanse Schans or something like that) we walked around and looked at the windmills, which were built in the 1600s and still in operation.  We toured the inside of one which was grinding peanuts into oil, and another that was used to make pigment.  There were six there in total, there were also ones to cut wood and grind mustard seed.  Here is a photo of some of the windmills:

We saw a bunch of other stuff there was well, including a clog maker, where you could choose from a wide variety of styles and sizes of clogs:

We then took the train back, and in the afternoon we walked around the city and did some (gasp!) shopping.  For dinner we ate at an Indonesian restaurant which was fun, I had never had that type of food before.

Thursday morning we decided to do a 40km bicycle tour of the countryside to the south of Amsterdam, so after a breakfast of Strop Waffels from Albert Heijns (a Dutch supermarket chain), we set off.  It was really nice, except that Roanne fell in some mud while we were pushing our bikes up a hill to take a short cut that I had selected, and after that her happiness was somewhat tempered by that incident.  Here are some photos of us on our bikes and along the route:

Here is one of Roanne stopped at one of the windmills (not operational) that we saw along the way:

Here is one of a house with some nice flowers outside of it.  Note also the thatched roof on the house, this was pretty common there.  The other types of roof we saw were ones made from tiles, we didn't see any normal shingled roofs like we have here.  It seems they build things to last a lot more there, which shows because in Amsterdam most of the Canal houses date from the 1600s.  Some of them lean a bit, but they are all still standing.  I wonder how much of our subdivision suburban sprawl in North America will still be standing 400 years from now?

We got lost at one point and ended up on the wrong side of a river, but luckily there was a had operated ferry that we could use to cross.  It was pretty neat, it had chains and wheels attaching the boat to each side of the river, so you wound a crank to bring the ferry over, then got on and wound the crank to pull it to the opposite bank.  It saved us a lot of backtracking!

For our last night in Amsterdam we are at a really nice Dutch restaurant, which had good food and was right on one of the canals (which isn't a huge feat since there are so many of them in the city, Amsterdam's surface area is 28% water because of all the canals).  We then walked back to our hotel since we had had to return our bikes earlier since we flew out early the next morning.  On the way back we took a nice photo looking down one of the canals:

We then flew back to Manchester on on to Toronto and then Salt Lake City.  Amsterdam was a great city, and it made me proud of my Dutch lineage, but unfortunately I could never live there because it is so stinkin' flat.  Can you imagine an entire country without one single outdoor rock climb, or one single Hors Categorie road climb?  Ridiculous.