I’ve been in calendar mode for a good month now and a couple of weekends back I dragged Steve Mac and Mark Busby up to the Lakes for some pixs. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Lakes and Steve has too it seems. We had two days and figured two venues in different valleys would be cool. The weather wasn’t awesome as we went past Kendal so we figured that a low lying, easy access crag would be a good choice. I suggested Raven Crag, Langdale and Steve agreed; the question was would Steve fancy the ripe plums on offer?...

The centre-piece of Raven Crag is a stunning wall skirting onto which on the fringes are the three ‘easy’ lines of Trilogy E5 6a, R’n’S Special E5 6a and Fine Time E4 6b. I didn’t think for one minute that they’d be enough for Steve and as it turned out I was right.

Centrefold E6 6b was Bill Birkett’s attempt to force a line up the middle of the wall though this baled out right when the going got tough. Keeping it in the family, Dawes Rides the Shovel Head E8 6c was Dave Birkett’s later solution. Remember OTE #92 with Tim Emmett on the second ascent on the front cover - the name was classic and the image indelibly printed into my mind. Betwixt this and Trilogy on the left was another Dave Birkett effort; Eulogy Direct. That was reported as harder (F8a/8a+) and certainly hadn’t had the attention that his Dawes route had.

Long story short; Steve warmed up on Trilogy, then effortlessly on-sighted Dawes Rides the Shovel Head without his boot laces even done up! I captured both dangling from the top lip of Trilogy. Job done, I thought, my rope provided an easy ab off – or so I thought. Not so; Steve wanted more and after abbing down Eulogy Direct he tried in once more and only flashed it. Heck, crag ticked in half a day and pixs in the can – result!

Day Two started in typical Lakes fashion – poring with rain. Still, we were literally just a stone’s throw from the wettest place in England, the bottom of Borrowdale. Following a warm-up on Falcon’s we hiked up to Bowderstone. Steve had onsighted Hell’s Wall yonks back so Inferno E7 6c was his target. I’ve never seen him jump for a hold before but he did and he got the wrong bit of the jug and was spat off the on-sight. To say he wasn’t happy was an underestimate! The first go red-point, followed by an immediate retro-flash of Hell’s Wall – for training – left Mark and myself dreaming!

So not bad weekend really all round – Steve got the routes in, I got the pixs in and Mark got to see his 5.10’s put to good use! And eventually I’ve managed to swop the viewfinder for a 21” monitor and spend a couple of nights processing some shots. Here’s some teasers - expect more to show up in the calendar for sure…

And congrats to the eagle-eyed UKC reader, simondgee, (http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=469282) for spotting Steve in the bright orange top. That someone photographing from the top of Trilogy was me BTW and what Simon couldn’t see was that Steve did his laces up for once on Eulogy – it must have been hard!

Steve warming-up on Trilogy…