Raven Crag

I have been in the lakes for a few days with the missus for a bit of down time together. We did give ourselves one day to do a bit of climbing, so went to Raven Crag in Langdale for the first time. A short walk in and a pub to finish with made this an easy choice.

Em has not climbed in a while, so we did Middlefell Buttress Diff***. This was pretty awesome ground for the grade and gave us a great start. Em was happy with the one route and happy to belay me on something else, so I gave Trilogy E5 6a*** a lash. I knew nothing and this route other than what I had read in the guidebook the day before when I bought it. So, it was great to have no preconceptions of where the hard bits might be etc. Em was not going to follow me, so I soloed up to the start of the route and got stuck in. Having 20m of rope out to start and the first bits of gear being low, meant I had quite a bit of rope drag. This seemed to make clipping the crux of the route. The guide mentioned a bold start, but I thought this was ok and found an excellent RP4 as well as other gear before reaching a good peg and bomber wire. the climbing was excellent and steady to the rest, then picked up nicely through the crux which was nippy for 6a. Once through the crux it eases nicely to the top, an awesome pitch.

Job done for the day, Beer O'Clock.