Sleepy Hollow

After the efforts of the walk and drive to work on Scafell on Sat night/Sunday morning, I was still a little tired today. Despite the driving rain that started yesterday afternoon and only finish in the early hours of the morning. I was still confident the Roost would be dry and Ed joined me with a similar view. I think the best way to describe it's condition when we arrived, was dry enough. Chip and Pin is the usual warm up. This was hard work today as it was soaking in the lower section. By the end of my warm up it was not too bad.

Ed was just back from Download Festival, so was taking the view that all and any climbing was a bonus. This said he was making good progress on Chip and Pin considering the conditions.

I have been working my way through the routes here and next up was Sleepy Hollow E6 6b***. This felt different to the routes I had done before as it was less crack climbing, more face and feature climbing. The route was still damp. Being at my absolute limit of possible onsight grade, I ended up having to sit on the gear and brush the route. I think it is fair to say I would have failed. The climbing was quite blind in places, but brilliant. Hard climbing led to the chimney and a good rest, then slightly easier climbing to the top. Once the route was clean and I knew where I was going, it was much smoother second go.

Only 3 more routes to go!