A Working Weekend

I have spent the weekend in the Peak with Izzi, who wanted to improve her general climbing technique.

Saturday we went to Burbage North where the focus of the morning was to get Izzi back on the sharp end.  She did well, leading a bunch of routes from Diff to HVD 4a.  I the afternoon we turned the focus on to new skills.  20 foot crack was a great place to run a jamming clinic, as it was the perfect hand size for Izzi.  We found finger cracks to work with, before spending some time focusing on footwork and shifting our centre of balance.  By the end of the day we had covered loads and climbed 10 routes from Diff to VS 5a.

Today we went to Stanage with the aim of climbing loads of routes to put into practice to skills covered yesterday.  We started by climbing Paradise Wall HS 4b*** which meant we were straight into some jamming and neat use of our feet to make things as easy as possible.  This theme continued with Paradise Arete VS 4c* and Pegasus Wall VS 4c*.  To mix up the use of feet and features, we then climbed Seesaw VS 4c*.  This has some good smeary moves up a slabby arete.  Izzi then led Garderner's Crack Diff* to break things up a little.  It was straight back to the focus of consolidating skills and we climbed Fairy Steps VS 4a**.  This was a great test for Izzi, with its lack of handholds in the right places which forced the use of good positive footwork.  Next up was The Coign HS 4b**, another slabby arete with a couple of steeper moves in the middle.  We moved over to Wall End Slab to cement the days footwork focus.  Here we climbed Wall End Slab VS 5a***, Wall End Slab Direct Finish E3 5c** and Wall End Slab Super Duper Direct E3 5c*.  This gave a really good and concentrated session.  The day ended on the Lone boulder.  Izzi managed to send Lone Slab Arete V1 5c.

A great couple of days in good company and with good conditions.