Sunshine on Shining Clough

Shining Clough presenting an intimidating outlook which it would live up to.  East Buttress to the left, Pisa Buttress in the centre and the pinnacle in the bay on the right.

To make the most of the day and to avoid the worst of the forcast heat we headed north the night before.  North facing and at 400 m Shining Clough was the plan, in an effort to escape the rising temperatures of East Anglia.  This was a new crag to both Rich, visiting from Canada, and myself and it was not to disappoint with hard, steep, uncompromising gritstone classics.

East Buttress with Atherton Brothers up the left, Phoenix Climb up the central crack and the most amazing severe of Via Principia up the right hand crack then arete/face.

Despite setting off from the van at 7:00 the walk up was still hot and sweaty and as we approached East Buttress I decided that Via Principia may be the better warm up over the soaring crack line of Phoenix Climb with is odd half height pocket.  As it turned out Via Principia packed a fair amount of climbing in to its 24 metres, first heading up a wide crack before following an exposed arete on to a wall which seemed to further ramp up the exposure.  A great warm up climb but left us wondering as to how tough the grades might be on this remote moorland crag. With this in mind I offered the classic Phoenix Climb to Rich and he started up smoothly but was soon cursing the absence of the crucial cam and climbing back down.  I decided to head up and take a look and placing some more trust in the hex which Rich had left and placing a further poor cam I jammed my arm in to the crack, raised my foot in to the odd half height pocket and pushed upwards reaching for the safety of the ledge above.  The crux move was made but the gear below me was starting to look even more shaky and there were more moves until I would be safe so I made the decision to back off and was happy to return to the odd shaped pocket where I realised that a crossed double arm bar could allow a decent rest but it was more than physical strength that I required so I continued on, downclimbing to the ground.  Ah, well, always good to leave a classic to come back to (with the right sized cams!).

Rich giving Pheonix Climb a go before being prudent over the protection available.

To try to regain some confidence we moved on to Atherton Brothers on the left side of the buttress which offered a much more traditional severe with some fun but awkward moves.  The sun was now high in the sky and dispite our altitude and aspect the temperature was starting to rise so it was time to find a more shady climb.  Stable Cracks is on the NW side of Pisa Buttress and although providing a bit of an adventure, once more tough at the grade, this time I was armed with an appropriate cam to provide an increased dose of confidence for the crux off-width crack.  After a baking belay and some debate over who deserved the next lead it was Rich who set off up Pisa Superdirect. 

Atop the pinnacle after taking the pretty bold Pinnacle Face. Pisa Superdirect heads up the arete and then upper crack of the buttress behind (Rich's lead) and Stable Cracks head up the obvious cracks to the right (my lead)

Taking the arete to start, as the thin cracks to the right offered little in the way of handholds and less for the feet, Rich made good progress up the sweeping crack which required a rather unexpected jamming lay away before the ledge to the right of the leaning tower and below the overhang was reached.  After placing most of the rest of our rack and having a couple of looks Rich made it up and through the overhang and quickly to the top of he climb for which I felt huge relief in that I would not have to head up and try to lead it.  On second none of the exposure was lost and the onslaught of tricky move after tricky move again made the route feel high in the grade but fortunately at the crux overhang a better fitting jam and a wider bridge eased my progress and hopefully it won't be long before I come back to lead this one.  With the humidity increasing we decided on just one more so I went for the Pinnacle Face which led to the top of a small stack standing proud of the main crag.  A fun route during which there was plenty to think about.  As we made the abseil descent the first spots of rain started to fall and it was proved a good decision to be heading back down the hill to a hot drive back to the flat lands. 


Rich had had his grit shot on his visit back to his climbing homeland and we had both been shown a thing or two about steep grit routes but it had been another great day exploring new rock from which the scars will soon heal.