Climbing with Claire...

today was the first time that Claire has climbed in many years....she took to it like a natural.

Our venue was Goat Crag, in the Watendlath valley. This was the place that I had been to with Luke on Fri, and our chosen route was The Slab, the only route we actually got up!!

Without wishing to embarass certain people, our ascent today was a little quicker than on Friday!! It was another lovely day with next to no wind at the crag and, once again, no-one there!!.

A quick re-hash of belaying for Claire, and a run through of the various climbing calls...I then led the route. I placed 3 pieces of gear, one which was rubbish fell out (it had stayed in on Friday but we had two ropes then so there was no angle for the rope to stretch across. Once on top I set up a bomb-proof belay and Claire set off. Claire climbed the first section (probably the technical crux) very well indeed. There was a bit of worry about the quite exposed step across onto the other slab; however once this was accomplished then Claire was on-top in very short order. Even better, this ascent was done in trainers (although she is now in possession of a pair of rock-shoes!!); with excellent footwork - all boding well for the future.

We had a nice ice-cream at Keswick and a quick 20 min play at Carrock Fell for the new shoes to be broken in properly.....now full steam ahead for Scotland in 3 weeks or so...