Climbing nostalgia is alive and well – very well in fact – so it seems if the great turn-out this weekend for the Stoney re-union is anything to go by. This being Britian, the weather was (obviously) in party-pooper mode, but even a regular dousing from above wasn’t enough to spoil the atmosphere on the crag. So to at the Moon later on in the evening when the gathered ex. glitter-clad youth of yester year adjourned for some well-earned (in most cases…) bevies.
Saturday’s breakfast brew was followed by a morning of persistent rain – joy. Just like the old days! The afternoon faired better mind and at least the intervals between the showers were sunny – at times. Windy Ledge was seemingly the place to be and be seen. Martin (a.k.a. ‘Basher’) Atkinson coined the ‘most memorable’ phase uttered all afternoon – “this ledge isn’t as wide as it used to be”. Strangely enough, the holds on the routes seemed smaller too! Chris Gore seemed to sum it up well – “we WERE good when we did these routes weren’t we”!
And just to prove that there’s life for the lycra lads after lycra here’s a few shots of the ex-Stoney crew hanging out on Windy Ledge on Saturday.
Dominic Lee impaled on the crucial ‘hard move up’ on Circe – a section of the route which is reckoned to have lost a few holds
Once past the aforementioned ‘hard move up’, a series of strenuous pulls through the steep overhangs above await. Neil Foster hanging around on the ‘big block’ before committing to the final hard moves on Circe
Messers Chris Gore, Mark Leach and Martin Atkinson gaze upward towards Kink, Kellog and Kingdom Come, to name but three routes above their heads. Note the ‘thin’ ledge beyond – it really is that ‘thin’ and yes, Phil Burke really did fall off it and live to tell the tale!
