dagibbs | Some climbing before Thunder & Lightning chased us away

Despite the fact that I'm flying to the UK this evening, I got out climbing this morning. K8 and I hiked in to a crag called, "The Gallery". It is fairly far up the escarpment -- you walk across a field to the base of the escarpment, and you can see three rocky/cliffy areas, and The Gallery is the on that is almost at the top of the escarpment. We were able to find the trails to it without too much difficulty, and setup a top-rope for the "Left Arete", climbed that and an un-named face to the left of it, then I switched the top rope over to the top of a 2-star (most climbs have no stars, a classic has one star, a really good classic has 2-stars in this book) route called "Face Climb". It was starting to spit as K8 started up, with rumblings of thunder in the distance. By the time she finished (and started raving about how nice a climb it was), it was raining with the thunder turned to sharp cracks. But, my gear was at the top. So, I tried to climb it, but just couldn't get the friction on the wet lichen covered rock. I did part of another climb, and part of this climb, using a lot more hand/arm power than I would normally, but got up, cleared the gear. Then we headed home.

Despite the small number of climbs, they were all new to us, and we were both glad to get out. And the view from the top was awesome.

And, in less than 24 hours I should be climbing in the Peak District in the UK.